


Coming Home

by Bullfinch



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Fight Scenes, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-24 07:39:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4910932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Inquisition. Kirkwall is invaded by a military force from Starkhaven, but her champions stand ready to defend her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: And here is my love letter to DA2. Takes place after Inquisition, with very mild spoilers for Trespasser…it actually takes place before Trespasser but I’ve moved a couple things in Trespasser up a bit because I think it makes sense—specifically, Varric's fate, and Vivienne’s actions in the epilogue. Disclaimer: I don’t own the Exiled Prince DLC and while I did attempt to do research, details re: Starkhaven may not be compliant with canon. 
> 
> Same universe as my After Kirkwall series with tidbits from that series and Millstone, but hopefully will stand on its own.

Fenris squints up at the sun and wonders how much longer he should keep trying before he accepts that this particular skill is not one he has managed to master.

The line remains unmoving. The water ripples gently around it. Not a single fish has bitten this morning. (Not the bait, anyway. They’ve been nipping at his calves and shins from the moment he waded in here.)  A month since he and Hawke finished building their little house outside the city and so far Fenris has caught seven fish. In total. Traps he knows, that skill he learned on the run. Perhaps he should abandon this doomed venture and try to trap the fish instead.

“Fenris!”

That’s Hawke, coming up the riverbank. The sack of potions he brought with him to sell still hangs off his shoulder—not surprising, he couldn’t have got to Kirkwall and back that fast. “You might want to pack a few things. We need to leave.”

Fenris frowns. “What? Why?”

“Would you believe someone tried to kill me?” Hawke heads for the house. “They even nicked my elbow. This life has made me slow. Oh, and there’s an army marching on Kirkwall. We should probably get inside the walls.”

An army?

There’s a tug on the line.  _Venhedis._  A young trout, slippery and green. Fenris lets it go. They have, as the Fereldan saying goes, bigger fish to fry.

——

Kirkwall is tense. Guardsmen run by as Fenris and Hawke move through Lowtown. On a normal day stares aren’t uncommon—even with six years gone since they left, the people here still remember the Champion and the companion with whom he shares an unspecified level of intimacy—but today everyone they pass just looks scared and confused, and Fenris and Hawke go largely ignored. “They must’ve just heard the news,” Hawke murmurs. “Shall we go see if we can be of service?”

They climb the stairs as the sun creeps across the sky. Midday now, or close to it. Autumn will be here soon, but first the last dregs of summer must leach into the air, saturating it with heat and humidity. It’s not so bad as they ascend.

But Hawke stops a dozen steps from the top. “Oh, shit.”

Fenris hears it a second later, a babble of chatter. The nobles must be out in force. Of course. An invading army is first-rate fuel for gossip and rumors of all kinds. Hightown is the most defensible part of the city by far—they won’t be scared, they’ll be thrilled. And on top of it all, the Champion making an appearance? He and Fenris will be swarmed. Fenris sighs. “We may be somewhat delayed in reaching the keep.”

“Not if I’ve got anything to say about it.” Hawke pulls his hood up. “Do me a favor and try to look like you’re on your way to kill someone, would you?”

That will not be a problem. Fenris makes sure his hair is tied back neatly, with no wayward strands falling in his face. Hawke towers in his cloak, dark and impenetrable. Then he starts climbing again, and Fenris walks beside him.

The market square is indeed replete with nobles. There are some things Fenris misses about Hightown—the carved stone cormorants gazing down curiously at the passers-by; the airy parks, with stands of white beech trees shading the mahogany benches below—but he does not miss the nobles. Not one whit. He dearly hopes Hawke’s plan works.

Hawke strides forward into the throng without breaking his pace, and he parts them as a leather-gloved hand draws aside a curtain of lace. He passes like a portent, this looming figure cloaked in black, and silence falls before him. The nobles clutch their chests and hide their children. Fenris tries his best to maintain a straight face. If Hawke is the spectre of storms to come, then Fenris must be the weapon at his hip, slim and shining. Hawke’s gait is different now—slower, longer steps, so he moves as though gliding. It’s all very artful.

They reach the keep unhindered.

The entrance hall is also packed—until the nobles see Hawke, of course, and Fenris beside him. The path to the barracks is abruptly clear. Finally they reach the steps and descend. Hawke claps a hand over his mouth to muffle the laughter, his silhouette breaking. “Maker. I should do that more often.”

Fenris’s composure gives, and he grins at last. “Your reputation has not faded with the years.”

 _“You_ were fantastic.” Hawke kisses his cheek, wraps an arm around his waist. “I rather like it when you look… _dangerous.”_

Fenris grasps Hawke’s hand firmly and removes it from his ass. “Now is not the time. Kirkwall is under attack.”

A wistful sigh. “Fine.”

Aveline’s door is open, and Fenris can hear her issuing a stream of commands. Hawke slips into her office and stows himself in the rear corner, Fenris beside him. She’s at her desk, leaned over a map of Kirkwall, and she glances at them both over her lieutenants’ shoulders. “All right, that’ll do for now. Dismissed. Hawke, I assume you’ve heard the news?”

“Felt it, rather.” Hawke waits until the guardsmen have left, then approaches. “I was on my way in to the city this morning when I was ambushed by one of their forward scouts.”

“Of course they’ve sent scouts,” Aveline mutters. “Did you learn anything?”

“Found his camp a few yards away. There was a detailed if unfinished map of the tunnels below Kirkwall. They’ve got people inside the city, that’s for sure, and the scouts are acting as middlemen. If you want, I could go clean them out of the woods for you,” Hawke offers.

“No, I need you here. Oh, Maker.” She rubs her forehead. “They’ll be here tomorrow evening. Our forces have some training in battlefield combat, but Starkhaven’s a lot bigger than we are, they’ve got a real militia. My people are going to get slaughtered.”

“Then don’t put them out there,” Hawke says. “Archers on the walls, but no foot soldiers outside the gates. They’ll be more useful inside the city.”

“We’ll need more than archers up there, they’ve got siege towers. No catapults, thankfully—they need to capture Kirkwall, not destroy it. They’ll break the gate, though, no matter how much we fortify it.”

“The city gate, true. But the district gates…”

“Oh yes, we’ll be using those. The only good thing about this city’s history.”

The great iron gates built throughout the city to break up potential slave revolts, when Kirkwall was still the City of Chains. Fenris nods. Starkhaven is the largest sovereignty in the Marches, and the odds are overwhelming in their favor, but they will at least pay for this victory. “Have you sealed the tunnels?” he asks.

“I was hoping we could use them, but if Starkhaven knows about them, they’re nothing but a liability,” Aveline replies. “I’ll have it done. We’ll need to cave them in to be sure. Oh, Maker take those blasted Vaels.”

“Yes—“ Hawke says. “Er, why, exactly, are we being attacked?”

Aveline heaves a sigh. “They’ve never liked the fact that I, the guard-captain of Kirkwall, chose to defend our mages against a lawfully invoked Right of Annulment, and I think they’ve taken it as an excuse to disagree with my decisions at every turn since. Now you both know the Gallows has been deserted since the Chantry was destroyed, but the building’s still there. So I’ve been approached by both the College of Enchanters and a representative of Grand Enchanter Vivienne. They each wanted to establish a branch here.”

The free mages’ organization, and the rival Circle. Hawke’s mentioned that they’re at each other’s throats. Fenris folds his arms. He still doesn’t much like the idea of free mages, but he supposes as long as the group stays well away from politics, he can make peace with the idea.

“Ah,” Hawke says. “And you gave the building to the College, which Starkhaven won’t have been happy about, considering how much they’re devoted to the old ways.”

“Right.”

“I’m sort of surprised, to be honest—I thought you’d go with the Circle. More order and all that.”

“Yes, well, Kirkwall’s already tried that, and it didn’t work out very well, now did it?”

Hawke half-grins. “You’re not wrong about that.”

“If Starkhaven takes over—with all the trade that comes through here, they’ll be unstoppable. They’ll establish Circles all over the Marches,  _including_  here. I don’t see that ending well,” Aveline says. “The College of Enchanters will take serious issue with it, and they’re a force to be reckoned with themselves. So we’re caught in the damned middle. Why Kirkwall? Why do we have to be at the center of everything? Can’t we just—“ She lets out a frustrated sigh. “Anyway. The tunnels. I’ll seal them, and we’ll use the district gates. They’ll have to claw for every inch.”

Hawke strokes his beard. “That means urban combat.”

“It does,” she replies. “My forces are trained for that, although I imagine Starkhaven’s will be as well. We have the advantage of knowing the city, but still…”

“Seems like you need help,” Hawke muses.

“That we bloody do. Have you got any suggestions?”

“Hire the Carta.”

Aveline stares.

“And any other group of lawless thugs you can get your hands on.” Hawke shrugs. “ _They_  know how to kill people in the streets.”

“Hire the—Hawke, we  _hunt_  the Carta!”

“On a normal day, yes. But this is not a normal day. Kirkwall is in danger.  _Kirkwall._  That’s their city too, they’ll fight for it right beside you.”

“Then can’t we just ask them?” she grumbles. “I’d really rather not give them any money.”

“Money does wonders for cooperation. Trust me, Aveline.” Hawke grasps her arm. “I’ll negotiate with them, if you don’t want to suffer that indignity.”

“Fine. Thank you, Hawke.”

“Have you sent away for help, by any chance?”

“A small army of birds is on its way to Skyhold,” she answers. “But we don’t have any formal alliance with them, so all I can do is pray. The rest of the Marches won’t help us, Starkhaven’s too powerful. They’ll stay out of this until the dust has settled.”

“So…we’re at the mercy of Inquisitor Lavellan.” Hawke grimaces. The Inquisitor is not known for her mercy. Quite the opposite, in fact. “Well, maybe you’ll catch her in a good mood. Has Varric been hidden away already?“

“He has. He begged me to post him on the walls so he could, and I quote, ‘let Bianca out to stretch her legs,’ but if the viscount falls the city will. Our morale can’t take that hit.”

“Good.” Hawke puts his hands on his hips. “So what can Fenris and I do?”

“Hawke, you’re still these people’s champion, and much as I hate to admit it, you’re one of the cleverest men I’ve ever met,” Aveline says. “So when I’m in the field, you and Donnic will take over in command. If something happens to me—“

“Aveline—“

 _“If something happens to me—_ I need you two to keep everyone’s heads up, and to keep Starkhaven at bay for as long as you can. Fenris, I don’t suppose you have any tactical insights from your time in Tevinter?”

Fenris exhales. “If we were fighting Qunari, I might be of use. Or if Starkhaven used mages in their military. As it is, I fear I can only offer you my blade.”

“I’ll take you up on that. It’ll be good to have an old friend on the front lines. Especially one as dangerous as—”

“Aveline, hang on—“ Hawke interrupts. “You’re fighting on the  _front lines?_  You’re the commander! You can’t put yourself at risk like that!”

“I have to.” She folds her arms. “My soldiers need me. As long as I’m there to hold, they’ll hold with me.”

Hawke opens his mouth as if to protest again, but he just shakes his head, surrendering. “Fine. I’ll stay back here so at least if this all goes to the dogs the city’ll still have someone they recognize to shout orders.” He taps the map absently, a spot in Lowtown—Gamlen’s house. “You know, I find myself sort of offended about all this. This is  _Kirkwall_  they’re invading. This is our bloody city. Who are they to try and take it from us?”

Fenris smiles. He has discovered that he, too, is angry. Kirkwall is his first and only home, and he will defend it to his last breath.

“If they sack our house I’m going to be  _very_  cross,” Hawke mutters.

Fenris leans up and kisses him. “We can build another after we oust them.”

“All right. Hawke, Donnic’s at the Hanged Man giving out orders. Go speak with him. Fenris—“ Aveline hesitates. “Would you mind checking up on Saravh quickly? She’s been alone all morning. I’ve been meaning to get back there, but, well, the whole city’s sort of bedlam right now.”

“Of course,” Fenris replies. He and Hawke have been into the city to visit Aveline a few times, and they’ve both become rather close with her and Donnic’s adopted daughter. “I can stay with her, if you wish.”

“That would be terrific. I’m sorry to put you on sitter duty—“

“It’s all right. I do not mind, truly.”

“At least she’ll be safe up here. Oh—Hawke, please tell me you’ve got some ideas about how to convince the damn nobles to let people stay in Hightown when we have to start evacuating sections of the city.”

Hawke guffaws. “Well, they’re all afraid of me. Maybe I could bully them into it.”

“If you need my help again, I will be more than happy to provide it.” Fenris turns to go. “I’ll see you later.”

——

He squeezes through the packed streets until he finds Aveline’s house, squat and drab between its more ornate neighbors. After he knocks and announces himself, he hears three separate locks being undone before the door swings open.

Saravh gazes up at him, her usual energy somewhat subdued. “Hello, Fenris.”

“Hello.” Fenris shuts the door and locks it again. “How much did Aveline tell you before she left?”

“Just that she and Donnic might be out for a while. What’s going on?”

Fenris is quiet for a moment. How to tell her that their city is being attacked, and the woman who took her in will be right in the most dangerous part of the battle? But Saravh is nearly ten, and has already undergone hardships that should not be borne by any child. So Fenris is straightforward with her regarding the invasion and Aveline’s role in it on the front lines.

When he’s done explaining she asks if he’d like some lunch.

She’s quiet as they eat (some Rivaini recipe Saravh brought with her to Kirkwall). Fenris reflects she might be taking the whole situation better than he is. As the reality of the threat sinks in, he finds that he is not only angry, but afraid. A slave for twelve years, a fugitive for three, then seven in a Kirkwall that began to dissolve just as he’d figured out what he wanted (a home, and Hawke there with him). After that four more years in hiding, and then that darkspawn magister appeared, and Thedas is only just now starting to return to normal. But he and Hawke have a life now. They have a house by a bend in the river. They rescue Varric from odious meetings, they’ve been training Saravh into a proficient hand-to-hand fighter. Hawke’s even convinced her to call him “Uncle Hawke,” to Aveline’s eternal displeasure.

But all that could be over before the week is out.

“Will you be fighting?” Saravh asks.

Fenris traces the rim of his teacup. “Yes, I will. With Aveline, in the vanguard.”

“Will Uncle Hawke be fighting?”

“No, not until he has to. He and Donnic are staying back to issue orders, I believe.”

“All right.”

She stares, solemn, at her empty plate. She’s already lost her parents. To lose the people who took her in after would be cruel. Fenris hasn’t anything to say to console her, either.  _We’ve sent word to the Inquisitor, but more likely than not she’ll leave us to be overrun._  Not exactly comforting.

“Can I help?” she asks. “Uncle Hawke’s taught me how to be sneaky. Maybe I could be a spy. They wouldn’t suspect me, I’m only nine.”

Fenris smiles. “I do not doubt your skill, but I can’t imagine Aveline would be very happy with the idea.”

“But I want to help,” Saravh says quietly, and tucks her hands between her knees.

Fenris remembers something Aveline mentioned. “They’ll be evacuating the lower districts up to Hightown. People will likely need help settling and finding supplies.”

“Oh! I can do that.” Saravh grins, her mood brightening in an instant.

There’s a knock at the door.

Caution makes Fenris gesture for Saravh to stay silent. Instead he comes forward himself. “Who is it?”

“Please let me in. If I stay on the streets any longer I’m afraid I’ll get murdered.”

Oh.

Fenris undoes the locks and opens the door. A hooded figure, not as tall as Hawke nor nearly as broad. But Fenris knows that voice, and those untidy strands of dark blond hair.

“Do you know how terrifying it is being back here again? I was certain I’d be recognized. But I suppose everyone’s distracted.” Anders steps inside and pushes his hood down. “Anyway, did you know Starkhaven’s marching on Kirkwall? The nerve of those people. What do you say we teach them a lesson?”

It’s been some weeks since Fenris saw Anders last. After Fenris broke him from Vengeance’s tyrannical grasp, and Hawke persuaded the Inquisitor to keep him on as an agent of the Inquisition, he visited them only once—before the house was built. Under Vengeance’s control he had grown starved and pale, but he looked healthier during the visit, and seems even stronger now.

Fenris sighs. “Aren’t you supposed to be traveling with a handler?”

“Oh, she’s gone back to Skyhold to beg the Inquisitor to step in. Have you got anything to eat?”

Fenris is still unused to what the mage is like without a demon clawing at his thoughts. Less argumentative, for one, which is no small blessing. “Half this city wants you dead. I’m surprised you wish to save it.”

“Yes, but Starkhaven supports the Chantry. The  _old_  Chantry. And they  _all_  want me dead.” Anders sheds his cloak. “I prefer Kirkwall.”

Fenris grunts. “Come in, if you must.”

“Thank you.” He walks past into the parlor. “Hello! Saravh, wasn’t it? Good to see you again.”

She gives him a small wave. “Are you going to fight them too?”

“You can count on it. It’s been  _too_  long since I set someone on fire,” Anders says airily.

Fenris tightens his jaw. “Please refrain from glorifying violence in front of children.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I do not think setting someone on fire qualifies as ‘fun.’ “

“That’s because you’ve never set someone on fire.”

Saravh leans back. “I don’t think Aveline would let me anyway.”

Anders shrugs. “Who says she has to know? You don't need magic to do it—”

 _“Anders._  Stop encouraging her to hurt people.”

“Why? There’s a war on! Now’s the best time to hurt people!”

Saravh hops off her armchair. “I’ll go get you some lunch.”

Fenris presses his fingers to his temple. “Aveline and Hawke need to be notified you’re here. If you’re recognized in the keep you’ll have to be taken into custody, so I should go. But I do not trust you alone with this child, however briefly.”

“Don’t worry.” Anders sits in Fenris’s seat. “I won’t indoctrinate her or anything. I swear.”

Fenris glares at him for a moment. But it’s miraculous enough he made it through the city alive, and appearing in the barracks will spell the end of that miracle. “Fine. I will be back. If I return to find any singe marks where there were none before, there will be consequences.”

As he navigates the crush of nobles outside, he realizes that this is the group Hawke chose most often to bring with him when he was called upon to solve a problem—Fenris, Aveline, and Anders. They have not fought together for six years. In the time since…Hawke has grown more deadly, certainly. Quicker, quieter, with a mind honed to a lethal edge. Aveline always insisted on taking patrols even though she was captain, and she has no doubt continued to do so in the unrest that has followed the Chantry explosion. Anders is without his demon patron now; but he is healthy and whole again, and in control. A fair enough trade, perhaps even advantageous. And Fenris has spent much of the past six years fighting—not to mention the lyrium brands, now several times more subtle and potent than they were when he last called this place his home.

So Starkhaven wishes to annex Kirkwall? Fenris pushes forward through the packed streets. They will not take it without a fight.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun is low, and clouds in black and purple streak the sky.

They are almost through. Fenris can see in small broken slits through the heavy wooden gate the flash of torchlight off helmets or chainmail. As he waits there is another great crash, and the the gate shudders again. A muffled scream gouges the air. One of the archers lining the walls has found their mark. They fire at will, ducking arrows that pierce the air from the advancing army.

“Get ready!” Aveline shouts beside him.

Fenris is ready. Fighting he knows. He has not fought on a battlefield in some time, but he has attacked camps of Qunari or slavers where he was greatly outnumbered, and the tactics are similar. The main concern will be not to harm any Kirkwall soldiers. They’re easy to tell apart—Kirkwall’s colors are red and silver, whereas Starkhaven wears blue and green. It isn’t that. The greatsword is an undiscerning weapon. His backswing is useful in many situations, but a mixed field isn’t one of them.

So he intends to cut a path deep into the enemy’s forces where Kirkwall’s soldiers cannot follow. Then he can attack indiscriminately.

A crash. In preparation, sacks of soil were piled in front of the gates, but many have slipped down with the repeated impacts. “This is our city!” Aveline calls.  _“Our_  city! We will not stand by and let these bastards take it!”

A gathered shout of assent. The company behind them stretches far back, down the long boulevard. Aveline and Fenris are at the front. Before them lies a stretch of cobblestones empty but for fallen burlap sacks and spilled soil. Fenris glances up. The rooftops are lined with more archers, many short and squat in stature. Carta. There are other street gangs mixed in there too—Fenris thinks he sees the crimson swatches of the Redwater Teeth, the black masks of the Invisible Sisters. A few guardsmen as well. Since the Divine’s official dissolution of the Circles—when it became lawful to do so—Aveline has been letting mages join the guard, and it is they who wait among the sons and daughters of Kirkwall’s underbelly, ready to defend their city.

Standing on the building just to his right, Fenris notices one mage in particular, hooded, a dark cloth hanging over his nose and mouth to obscure his face. He nods down as he catches Fenris’s eye. Fenris nods back. Anders.

If only Hawke were here to complete the tetrad. Then nothing could stop them. But he is stationed at the Hanged Man, near the base of the stairs to Hightown. Far from here, and safe. The city needs its champion.  

Another crash. The fat bar across the gates cracks, bowing inward. Fenris draws his sword, the black steel scraping from its sheath. Heavy and familiar. He grips the hilt, ready to kill, eager for it. Aveline draws as well, and glances over her shoulder. “On my mark!”

A final crash, and the gates swing open. Figures in blue and green pour through the gap. Aveline says nothing, only stands firm. Fenris waits. More of them stream in, yelling out battle cries, until they’re twenty deep on the boulevard. Fenris hears shifting in the ranks behind him. Still Aveline does not call the charge.

Then fire rains down from the sky.

The mages on the rooftops have their arms raised as if in supplication. Great lush blooms of orange flame swirl joyously over the cobblestones, sweeping through the Starkhaven soldiers. There is plenty of screaming. Fenris smiles to himself. That should dent their confidence a little. Still, more soldiers rush in, dodging around the hungry flames, scampering forward.

At last Aveline raises her sword. “CHARGE!”

Fenris charges.

It has been a long time since he’s fought with a mage at his back—one or two brief encounters when he worked with that preening Tevinter, but aside from that it’s just been him and Hawke. So he must remember that the fire  _will not_  hurt him, that the mages are controlled, that they can manipulate the stuff of this world and twist the magic away from him. He runs through a wall of flame and feels only a flare of heat. On the other side a man stands, startled, bearing a shield of blue.

Fenris kills him.

A short chop to the neck. The man didn’t even raise his shield. He likely did not expect an enemy to emerge from inside the roaring inferno before him. A mistake. In battle one must expect danger from every direction, must even be thinking constantly of the corpses on the ground in which one’s feet might tangle, lest the oversight expose one to a ready blade.

Fenris could walk through the corpses. He could invoke the lyrium, make his feet and lower legs insubstantial. But that trick is best left to the moment when it will have its greatest effect, whenever that might be. So instead he simply steps around the burned bodies (much smaller than Qunari bodies, and much easier to navigate) and advances.

The Starkhaven forces still pour in, but with more circumspection this time, and with shields raised. Fenris hears the clash of steel behind him—far behind him. He is alone, ahead of his allies. Good. He isn’t wearing Kirkwall colors but the invaders pin him as not one of theirs, and they target him. Perhaps they think he will be an easy victory to bolster their morale. A fatal error.

It is best like this. When the field of battle is not yet packed with soldiers to crush him in on all sides, when he has room to swing the greatsword from the shoulder rather than to keep it in close, so that he may lend his blows power. When there are plenty of places to step that will provide stable footing. The state will be transient, he knows, in tight quarters, with buildings to his left and right; soon his movements will be dictated by the flow of the field. But now.

But now.

He stands there and lets them close. The greatsword’s range is formidable, and he is intimately familiar with it, knows exactly the point in space that will expose his enemies to its brutal edge. He watches them approach. Watches them reach it.

Then he steps forward (extending, hopelessly exposed—but there is no one yet to take advantage) and swings.

A scream, an exultant spray of blood. Fenris does not stop. It is begun.

He follows the weight of his weapon, lets it carry him. There is room to move, a gift he will not waste. The momentum of the blade’s sweeping arcs pulls him gently left and right, as if he is standing chest-deep in ocean waters. Always he keeps weight on both feet; a corpse may seem stable enough at first only to give, and he needs to be able to compensate. He discovers he is smiling as soldiers in blue and green fall around him. Warriors who wield heavy weapons like the greatsword often depend on power alone to kill their enemies, but Fenris’s body is small and does not take up much room. His pivots are almost instantaneous. The blade lashes out as explosively as the mages’ tongues of flame did moments ago. They’re all afraid to get near him, but they have nowhere to go. The gate is behind them, the stacked bags of soil holding the opening to a mere few feet; and past Fenris, Aveline and her best hold the line. The space between is a killing field. So Fenris kills, and kills. The soles of his feet grow sticky with all the gore he walks through, with all the souls he has turned into broken piles of flesh and organs.

Then he finds he has run out of targets.

The current pulling him slows and then stops, his blade drifting down. Bodies are strewn around him. He turns; no fighting in the ranks of soldiers either. Starkhaven has pulled back. Aveline’s smiling, and she nods at him.

There’s a shout behind her, and a raised sword pierces the air. The shout is taken up, passed around until it thunders off the dilapidated buildings, and he hears it from the rooftops too, the triumphant cries from the city mages and the street thugs bearing it up into the darkening sky. It takes him a moment to realize what they’re saying.

_Fenris._

He forgets sometimes that he is known, that he was a well-recognized face in Kirkwall and that his part in Varric’s book was substantial. (Hawke tells him he’s the second most popular character.) The remembering always surprises him, as it does now, as his name—the name he was branded with, that he took back for himself, he, a former slave with a terse manner and a bad temper—is lifted to the heavens. He realizes that somehow, though he would never in a thousand years have expected it, he has become a beacon of hope. A rallying cry.

All this stumbles through his mind as he stands dumbly and stares, stupefied, at the company.

Aveline approaches and claps him on the shoulder. “You’ve really inspired them. Without Hawke here, it seems you’re their champion.”

Fenris blinks. “I—er. Oh.”

“I’d forgotten what you could do with a blade. A half-dozen of you and we could clean this whole thing up by morning.” She grins at him.

He flushes, mutters “You flatter me.”

“Come on. They’ll be taking another run at us soon enough.” She turns and raises her voice. “Soldiers of Kirkwall! We have pushed them back, but the battle is only just begun! Are you ready to fight?”

A rousing cheer. Good. Morale is a powerful decider. That was one advantage the Qunari had on Seheron—the Qun lent them certainty, so that even going to their deaths they would not flinch from their role. The Tevinter militia was generally much less happy to die for their cause. Fenris returns to the fore of the company. The gates shiver and expand a little, though no one appears between them. Must have people trying to shove them open. Then a gust of flame sprouts from the cobbles and sweeps deftly through the opening. There’s a chorus of agonized screaming. Fenris glances up. As he suspected. Anders stands at the edge of the rooftop, his hands weaving through the air.

For a few moments silence sits thick and tense on the battlefield. Murmurs fly, close between the buildings to either side.  _What are they doing? What are they waiting for?_

Another bloom of fire. But it’s not on the streets this time—it’s on the rooftops. An archer falls shrieking to the alley below.

“They’ve got mages?” Aveline gasps.

The gates shudder once, twice, three times. Then they burst open, and a phalanx marches through, shining spear-tips poking through a wall of tower shields locked together. Fenris grimaces. His greatsword might cut through chainmail, but not tower shields. It seems the initial foray was but a test, a probe to gather information. High above he hears a shout—Anders’s voice. “Counter the mages! Protect the archers!”

Countering—an apparently difficult but impressive trick. Fenris has seen great storms of lightning or whirling towers of ice shards vanish in an instant with no more a curt wave of Anders’s hand. He wonders how many of the guardsmen mages have learned the technique. Anders is correct to give that command; archers can’t defend themselves, and left unprotected they’ll fall quickly. The air above Fenris shimmers, and white-purple sparks crackle two stories up; but then the space seems to fold oddly, and the shimmer vanishes.

There’s nothing he can do about that. He must trust Anders and the rest of the mages. (Trusting mages. Not a habit he ever wanted to get into, but here he is.) He raises his blade again. “Aveline, help me open a hole in their formation.”

“You’ve got it. Shields up!” she shouts, and raises her own shield. “With me!”

Fenris goes in front, with Aveline and her own shield wall behind him. They march down the street, trampling corpses, and the space between the two lines grows smaller and smaller. No plunging charge this time—that’s one way to break a phalanx, but it’ll end too many lives on those spearheads. The soldiers might be wondering what the plan is. But their champion (ridiculous, still, the whole concept) leads them, and he feels the weight of their trust, feels for the first time the burden of it. He  _must_  succeed, because his failure is a failure for all of them.

A great tide of flame springs up from the field of corpses and roars toward the Kirkwall company.

 _Venhedis._  No time to become a ghost, but his markings flare reflexively, and he draws on them, angry. How dare they use magic on normal soldiers, who have no defense against it? The lyrium seethes and lashes out, consuming the magic that crests around him. The heat is still searing, and he sucks in scorched air and prays his skin won’t blister. Then abruptly the fire dissipates. He glances over his shoulder.

Char marks on shields, scared faces. But no one has fallen. Did he do all that?

A shout from above. “Nice one, Fenris!” Anders. Apparently the lyrium neutralized the spell. But that drained him—not optimal; he’d intended to save that power for an emergency. Although he supposes an angry inferno advancing on Aveline’s troops qualifies as an emergency, and anyway, he has enough power left to carry out his original plan.

The phalanx draws near. Good. Their spears have reach, but so does Fenris. He swings his greatsword, knocking the spearheads away, and throws himself forward at the juncture of two tower shields. The shield-spikes scrape over his armor. He gathers power in his markings and, before the soldiers can push him away, releases it in a blast of force.

A cry. The soldier before him reels. Fenris follows up, slamming the flat of his blade into the wobbling shield and shoving with all his strength. Behind him he hears Aveline grunt as she throws back the other dazed soldier. A rising shout goes up, and there’s the clatter of armor as Kirkwall forces dive into the opening, driving a wedge into the formation. It’s done. The phalanx is broken.

Fenris steps back. He is without a shield, and close quarters do not favor a greatsword. It’s only a matter of moments before the entire shield wall falls to pieces.

When it does, he starts killing again.

Thrusts this time rather than slashes. Against a tower shield, leading with the edge is a waste of time. He must be more careful now; his blade takes longer to clear, and if he doesn’t remain vigilant it will be easy for those massive shields to box him in and cut off his mobility. He could escape, of course, become a ghost and walk through them. But he wants to wait. It’s a powerful ability, and best kept secret. One of Hawke’s lessons.  _Deprive your enemy of information. Force them to act on assumptions. If they’re wrong, you’ve got them._

So instead he is cautious. He kills fewer this way, but it’s early still, and he may yet have a part to play.

There are too many of them, as there always were. The Kirkwall line is pushed back, although not nearly as fast as it would have been had the phalanx held. The fighting spreads into the side streets, and archers trickle away to suppress them there. Fenris hears more explosions deeper in. Mages. Who’d have thought they’d bring mages?

He is at the fore, Aveline beside him, stemming the tide. Kirkwall’s red and silver grow rarer; instead, he cuts through an endless sea of blue and green. Until a diminutive shape in black appears suddenly, as if out of the shadows. A dwarf. Carta. “They’re too deep into the side streets!” she shouts over the clash of battle. “You need to pull back now or they’ll cut you off from the gates!”

Aveline deflects an axe-blow and cuts the man down. Then she takes a breath and calls out “PULL BACK!”

As if in response, the Starkhaven forces surge forward. Aveline blocks again with a grunt. “Fenris—“

“I am with you.” He parries and thrusts, clears the blade.

Across the district he hears the echoed shouts— _“pull back!” “pull back!”_  The first gated wall is a half-mile deep into the city. Only two of the gates have been left open. Aveline stays where she is, and he remains with her to cover the retreat. After a minute he notes her moving back at last and follows her. Their ranged support has all but vanished, but one shape remains—Anders. So that’s why no spells have reached them.

The rooftops in Lowtown have always been easy to navigate; the buildings lean into each other, and where they don’t, enterprising criminals have built bridges, rickety wooden planks that require the agility of someone experienced with running from the law. Anders follows as they track back down the boulevard. The city walls disappear from view as they move deeper into Lowtown, but Fenris notices the archers there are also retreating. The scaffolds they climbed to get up there were destroyed as soon as everyone was in place, and they’ll have to find intact ones behind the district gates to get down again.

This part of the city is lost. But at least it was not given away.

There. The black iron gate comes into view. Kirkwall defenders dart through, and more archers on the district wall pick off those Starkhaven soldiers foolhardy enough to try. Only thirty yards away. Now twenty-five. Fenris heaves in harsh breaths. How long has he been fighting? He is  _tired._

A shout of surprise, or pain, or both. That’s Anders. But Fenris felt no blaze of heat, nor gust of cold, nor the crackle of static on his skin. He glances up. Instead there’s an ethereal glittering haze in the air, a soft glow of white against the purple sky.

Spirit energy.  _Venhedis._  He needs to stay away from that. His markings do not take kindly to it. Strange that Starkhaven, the Marches bastion of tradition, would use a school of magic so widely looked down upon, or at least viewed with suspicion.

A hard shout. “Take them both!  _Alive,_  mind you!”

Fenris discovers the situation has changed.

The blue and green have fallen away. Now he and Aveline are surrounded by a group in drab brown or faded black. Further down the boulevard a small group of mages hurl spells at Anders, who calls down, “Aveline!”

Two dozen specialized fighters with mage support. Not focused on gaining territory—instead they want, specifically, Aveline and Fenris. But  _alive._ Fenris considers it. With Anders’s support, they  _might_  be victorious, although the spirit energy makes him leery of that. (Do they know what it does to him, or is it only a coincidence?) More likely Anders will be killed and they’ll both be taken anyway. But Anders is ready to fight, and his call to Aveline was a request for orders.

“Go!” she shouts. “Fenris, you should—“

“I’ve already told you, I am with you.” He readies his blade. If they are kept in the same place, he may be able to effect her escape. And if not—he is a ghost, he cannot be held by anything short of blood magic. His own escape will be trivial.

A burst of mist, and a spray of sleet. By the time the Starkhaven mages manage to dismiss the spell, Anders has disappeared. Fenris sighs and tries to make peace with the fact that he is soon to be taken captive. But first he will kill as many of them as he can.

He charges.

The insidious crawl of spirit magic in his head. The touch of it makes him nauseous, and the lyrium brands spark, unsettled. No matter. He comes up on a woman with a shortsword. She parries his swing. He kicks her in the gut, and she stumbles. He kills her.

A wave of weakness hits him, and he falters. But the lyrium burns it away. A man comes at him with a sap. He blocks, the sap rebounding off the flat of his blade, and strikes pommel-first. The man’s head whips to the side, blood spraying from his nose. Fenris kills him.

Then staggers. Exhaustion smothers him like warm hands pressed to his face. Fenris bares his teeth. Not yet. Who is next to fall under his blade? A woman with a mace and shield appears. He makes a messy swing, and she brings her shield up to deflect it. The impact jars his sword, and his grip, weak suddenly, springs open, his weapon clattering to the street. She swings the mace. He dodges, lashes out his with his heel. The kick connects, caving her knee in. She buckles. He jams his hand under her chin, and his sharp steel gauntlets rip into her throat. Good. Her body drops to the ground.

He is wavering now, his balance deserting him. Where is Aveline? Nausea wells in his gut. Spirit magic.  _Venhedis._  A man with a club. Fenris is too slow to dodge the blow, so he blocks instead, winces as it thuds into his crossed forearms. Then his hand darts out, levering behind the man’s head, throwing him to the ground. Fenris drops to a knee on the man’s back, jabs into his throat with the flat blade of one hand.

He tries but cannot stand back up. His gore-soaked fingers splay on the cobblestones. They’re going to take him. He knew that already, but the thought still chafes him, that he must let himself be taken. It’s for Aveline’s sake, he reminds himself. For Aveline.

A haze of white eats away at the edges of his vision. He turns his face into his arm as his stomach twists with the sickness.

He will escape. He  _will_  escape.

The world drops away and leaves him behind.


	3. Chapter 3

Fenris wakes to the sound of impact.

A muffled  _thud._  A closed fist meeting its mark. Not him—someone else. He blinks, trying to figure out where he is. Torchlight dances nervously over the stone floor.

Another  _thud._  The bleariness seeps from his vision, and his eyes flick up.

The man punches Aveline again.

There are a few smears of blood on her face, where the skin has broken, or where the man’s knuckles have left smudges of it behind. She’s been stripped down to her clothes and tied to a chair—a dining chair, a well-made one, with stocky arms and lions’ paws for feet. They appear to be in some kind of cellar. Fenris lies at the base of a wall, with Aveline opposite. Clustered between her and the door are a dozen of the agents who took them in the first place. No telling how many of them are mages.

Breaking Aveline out may be difficult.

“Lorne.” A woman near the door nods at Fenris. “The elf’s awake.”

The man in front of Aveline grunts. “Just keep an eye on him for now.”

Fenris sits up, with effort. He discovers his ankles are tied, and his wrists bound behind his back. With…rope. Mundane rope. That hardly counts as trying. If  _he_  needs to escape, he can. For a moment he considers doing so, alone, to bring information of her capture and location to Hawke. Hawke is the one with the mind for strategy. But of course, if he does that they will simply move her, and she’ll be lost again. So he sits back against the wall and tries to think of a plan.

Another punch.

Aveline takes it in silence. Lorne sighs, shaking out his hand. “Where is the viscount?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Aveline replies. “It’s easy to lose track of him, he isn’t very tall.”

Lorne leans down suddenly and grabs her face. “I’ve hardly  _begun_  to hurt you. Tell me what I want to know and you will spare yourself a great deal of unnecessary pain.”

“Sorry, were you hurting me?” She smiles at him with split lips. “I hadn’t noticed.”

The viscount. They want Varric. To cut the head off the snake, so to speak. Varric is certainly the most popular figure in Kirkwall, beloved by law-abiding citizens and criminals alike; he did not discriminate in his reconstruction efforts. Fenris has even seen Chantry sisters thanking him in the streets. It is he who finally managed to unite the city, after it spent so much time broken in a dozen different ways. If Starkhaven gets to him, morale will take a fatal blow. Kirkwall  _will_  fall. So he has been hidden away, in a location known to none but perhaps a few anonymous guards and, of course, the city’s guard-captain. From whom they are now trying to extract the relevant information.

Fenris must suppress a smile. They would have more luck drawing blood from a stone. Not that he is pleased to see her hurt, of course, and he will continue to think of a way to free her. But these agents will not obtain what they seek. Lorne delivers a jab to Aveline’s stomach. She hardly flinches. Fenris reflects it must be not unlike punching a stone wall.

Lorne exhales, plainly frustrated, and jerks his head. The woman next to the door opens it and goes upstairs.

Lorne continues to work on her. Punches to the face or gut. Aveline takes them stoically, and when questioned about Varric’s location she either claims ignorance or tosses out an airy quip. Fenris recognizes Hawke’s sense of humor in her words. Perhaps she is thinking of him now, to lend her strength. Not that she needs any  _more_  strength—she is, after all, Aveline Hendyr—but he’s found it’s best to take hope wherever one can find it.

The woman comes downstairs again holding a hot iron poker. Ah. So that’s where she went.

“All right then. Let’s see if this loosens your tongue any.” Lorne takes the poker, the tip glowing baleful and bright in the dim cellar, and presses it to her arm.

She flinches at that, and grits her teeth. There’s a quiet hiss from the burned flesh. Fenris narrows his eyes. This has passed the point of carefree observation. Now he is angry. Lorne lifts the poker away from the red-black mark on her arm. “One more chance before I  _really_  hurt you. Where is the viscount?”

Aveline takes a moment to compose herself—or maybe prepare herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” she says. “Could you repeat the question?”

Lorne grabs her by the jaw and presses the poker to her cheek.

Fenris’s markings flare as he hears her bitten-back cry. He wishes very much to kill this man. But attacking now will gain them nothing—still too many agents here, and the woman by the door eyes him, a faint white glow appearing around her fingers. A mage, a spirit mage. If she’s any good, she won’t give him enough time to free Aveline and fight his way out. Lorne keeps the poker against Aveline’s cheek for what seems like an age, and Fenris can see her muscles tensing against the ropes as she tries to get away from his hard grip. But she is too tightly bound.

At last Lorne steps back.  _“Where is the viscount?”_  he hisses.

Aveline gazes up at him, sweat shining on her brow, an ugly, broken wound marring her face. “Do you know how many dragons I’ve fought? You know, the ones that breathe fire? Do you think a— _agh!”_

Lorne’s jabbed the tip of the poker into her shoulder. That’ll do damage. Fenris’s hands curl into fists behind his back. Should he attack? Rip this man’s heart out? It would provide no small satisfaction, at least—

“Oi!” A shout from upstairs. “Lachlan and Kenna are back!”

Lorne smiles.

That isn’t a good sign.

“Good,” he calls. “Bring ‘em down.”

There’s a thumping on the stairs. “I know,” Lorne says. “You’re hard as a rock. Can’t be broken. I could work on you all night and never get anywhere. So.” His smile widens. “Maybe I should work on someone else.”

Three agents come through the door. Two are dragging a man, bound, and one a little girl.

Donnic and Saravh.

Aveline screams. Something that might be  _no_ , or just a wordless exclamation of—rage, despair, terror, Fenris can’t imagine what she’s feeling right now. How did they get Saravh down from Hightown? He supposes a mage specialized in stealth might not have too hard a time carrying just one small person. As for how they infiltrated Lowtown to take Donnic—that does not bode well for the war. Saravh is already awake, and her cheeks shine with tears, but she bites her lip hard and doesn’t sob. Donnic is unconscious, only to be roused by a sharp kick to the gut. He gasps, curling, then looks around. “Aveline, Maker—“

 _“How dare you?!”_ Aveline is furious now, and frightening despite the bloody gash on her cheek.  _“How dare you take my husband?! My daughter?!”_

“Saravh, sweetheart, it’ll be all right—“ Donnic murmurs.

“Here’s the thing.” Lorne casts the poker to the ground and draws a small, deadly dagger. “We really only need one of them. So you get to choose who dies now.”

 _“I’ll kill you!”_ Aveline lunges against her bonds.  _“I will kill all of you!”_

“I’m thinking the girl.” Lorne grabs a fistful of Saravh’s curly hair, and she flinches, fresh tears squeezing from her eyes. “She’ll probably cry. I really don’t want to listen to that.”

Donnic struggles upright. “Please don’t, please take me instead—“

“She’s just a child!  _She’s just a child!”_

 _“Where is the viscount?!”_ Lorne roars.

Aveline freezes.

It’s time.

All eyes are on her, every agent hanging on her next words. No one is looking at Fenris anymore. He invokes the lyrium, so quickly it stings, and rushes forward.

He has never done this before. But the more he uses the markings, the more he learns about them. They are a focus, he knows that much—the power lives in his flesh but is not bound by it. He can use it to reach out and neutralize hostile spells, as he did earlier. He can subsume objects in his ghostlike state—armor, weapons.

He is about to find out whether or not he can subsume another person. A small person, granted. But a person nonetheless.

He scoops Saravh up in his arms and runs.

The lyrium takes her at his urging, but immediately he feels that this is  _wrong,_  this is not supposed to happen. It doesn’t matter. She is a child, and she is Aveline’s daughter. He will do everything he can to save her, regardless of the cost to himself. He ascends the stairs two at a time. At the top there’s a small room with a sturdy red door. He goes through it—

—wrenches out onto the street outside. Passing through a simple door should not have been so difficult. The two agents standing guard yelp in surprise at his appearance. He sprints down the street. The sound of the door bursting open behind him. He sprints faster. But not fast enough to escape the missile of spirit energy that punches straight through his middle. He stumbles and nearly falls, his body disrupted. Too many more of those and he’ll lose this form. But he gathers himself, with effort, and goes forward. They will be pursuing. Lessons from Hawke come back to him.  _Break their line of sight. It’ll buy you time. Might even buy you freedom._  He tacks left, through the wall of a building. His ghost-body seethes in protest, the little spots of light that make him up shivering and threatening to escape. It’s a house, a bedroom, with a pair of soldiers sleeping. They do not wake to his presence. Like this he is silent.

Through a cluttered living room and a kitchen, into an adjacent home. One of the soldiers here is awake, and she makes a startled noise when he darts through the wall. So he keeps going, through a washroom, onto the street again. Which way to go? The soldiers will be concentrated near the city gate, or the smaller ones between the districts. To disappear he must avoid those.

He picks a destination and runs.

A shout behind him. If only he didn’t glow quite so brightly. The streets are dark, torches few and far between. Once he loses his pursuers and can release the lyrium, it will not be difficult to ensure they remain lost. But until then he must remain as he is. Without the lyrium, Saravh’s weight will slow him, and the advantage of being able to go where others cannot is something he must exploit as far as he can.

A blast of spirit energy clips him, and he staggers, his body protesting, heaving against its confines. He clamps it down with a great force of will and turns, slipping into another building. He does not doubt that soon enough, mere force of will won’t be sufficient to keep his incorporeal form from dispersing into a cloud of—he isn’t sure. He has done it intentionally before, because it was the only way to eject Vengeance from Anders’s body. The Tevinter mage told him he seemed to just disappear. But he can’t have  _truly_  disappeared—he remained aware, mostly of the horrible pain, but also of his surroundings, unclear though they were. (Everything was green, for some reason, and in both instances he came out of the state with a vague memory of a city he had glimpsed in the distance, although there was no city where he was at the time.)

He would suffer that again to save Saravh. But dispersing while she is under the lyrium’s hold—that cannot happen. There’s no way to know what effect it would have on her, a mere passenger. The lyrium protects him, aids him, works with him. Fighting it is an unnatural and deeply unpleasant feeling. He knows there is more power in his brands than he’s ever touched, and he fears the backlash if he misuses them.

This place is empty—of furniture as well as people. He notes a scorched pile of wood in the corner. The residents must have burned the furniture to spite the soldiers who might try to stay here. He finds himself smiling as he plunges through into the next residence. He has missed Kirkwall.

Into the street again, straight across to the next building. He must keep himself out of their sight. If a few mundane soldiers still awake at this hour see the ghost dashing through their seized homes, it is an acceptable sacrifice. The mages are the ones he must lose—and soon. Each wall he passes through is another jolt of disorder to his insubstantial body. His ghost-form will fail before long.

He once knew Lowtown so well he could walk it blind, and he recalls the map now in his head, the major landmarks (taverns, for the most part), the cramped streets bending toward each other only to angle away insolently at the last second. It’s dark out now, and many things have changed since half the city fell casualty to the templars’ holy march on the mages. But still he recognizes a wooden sign, hanging in the light of a torch a few yards to his left— _Biggren’s Butchery._ The painted pig’s head was never a soothing image in the first place, but the burn marks that grasp the lower half of the sign have transformed the pig’s grinning face into a ghastly demon newly emerged from the Fade—an avatar of Gluttony, perhaps? Fenris welcomes the sight now. He knows where he is. Not far. He steps forward into the next building.

Once inside he must pause, crouching. The lyrium rages, the insubstantial stuff of his body straining to escape.  _Venhedis._  He will not be able to hold it back much longer. So he staggers forward, through the empty house, suppressing more tremors as he passes through each wall. Almost there. He stumbles out onto the street.

And collapses, the weight of his body returning to him as he releases the lyrium. 

It hurts. His skin burns with the aftershock, almost a reproach. Nonetheless, it is better than dispersing. Still he holds Saravh to him. The alley is dark. They must keep moving. They must get inside.

Saravh squirms out of his arms. “Are you all right?” she whispers.

No. No, he isn’t. He  _hurts._  The touch of his clothing against his skin is excruciating. “We—we have to—“ He tries to stand. His armor is too heavy, and he falls to a knee.

“We have to hide.” Saravh grasps his hand  _(hurts,_  but it’s welcome anyway).

“Blackhand Street,” he gasps. “We must. Get there.”

Saravh nods and helps him stand.

His strength is gone. Either the lyrium drained it, or his body still in disarray from his recent flight and won’t work properly. And there is likely some contribution from having been struck twice by spirit energy. Saravh leads the way, peeking around corners, motioning him forward. He can barely keep himself upright. The soles of his feet burn when they touch the dirt-packed streets. Damn these markings. Torches are few here, and they walk in darkness.

It’s only a couple of blocks until they reach Blackhand Street, and Fenris points, following Saravh to their destination. He hopes no soldiers have decided to settle here, although he can’t imagine why they’d choose this place, cramped and poor as it is. The door is locked. A good sign. He manages to call on the lyrium once more, phasing his fingers through the lock and breaking it.

Gamlen’s home is dark and empty. Fenris shuts the door and collapses against the wall. Safe. Nominally. Saravh crouches beside him. “Are you all right?”

His skin is a cloak of fire he wishes he could shed. “Yes, I am. Are you?”

She wraps her arms around her knees. “What did you do to me?”

He cracks a smile. “To tell you the truth, I’m not entirely sure. But it was the best idea I had.”

She hesitates, then nods. “I’m all right. We can rest here and then go back and find Uncle Hawke and he’ll help us rescue Aveline and Donnic.”

Fenris is quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he asks, “How did they get you into Lowtown?”

“Someone came into the house. I got sleepy all of a sudden. When I woke up they were carrying me through a tunnel. It was really small and I got bumped into the wall a few times. I pretended to still be asleep so I could spy. Then when we came up again we were in Lowtown.”

“Where? Where did you come up?”

She presses her hands to her cheeks and frowns. “I think—it was dark, I couldn’t see very well. It was in an alley. There was a painting on the wall of some big dogs.”

“Is there anything else you remember?”

“I saw a street sign, but it had a really long word that I didn’t know. It started with a C.”

Relief flushes through him. “Chrysanthemum Street. The Dog Lords used to keep their Mabaris in a storehouse at the end of it. There’s a tunnel there that goes higher in Lowtown, close to the steps. They must have cleared the rubble and opened it back up.”

Saravh’s dark eyes are wide, reflecting the ambient light from the window. “Is that how we’re going to get back?”

“That’s how you’re going to get back.” He takes a deep breath. “Saravh, I cannot go with you.”

She shrinks a little. “Oh. I—I have to go alone?”

“Yes. I can’t do much more than stumble right now, and I haven’t any idea when my strength will come back. But Hawke needs to know about this—all of this. The opened tunnel, Donnic’s kidnapping, the fact that Aveline’s still alive and they’re trying to get her to give up Varric’s location. You’re the only one who can get him that information.” Everything in him protests the idea of putting a child in danger like this, but there is no other way. “You said Hawke taught you how to be sneaky, is that right?”

She nods vigorously.

“Good. Use what you’ve learned. Above all, be  _careful._  Do not rush. Be sure, at every step, that you are not seen. It is much better to move slowly than to be caught. Stay away from the torches.” He grimaces. “The tunnel will likely be guarded. You might have to create a distraction.”

“Uncle Hawke’s told me stories about those!” Her fists ball in her dress. “I can do it. I’ll be careful. And if they catch me I’ll just cry and pretend I don’t have a mum or a dad and I got left behind.”

Fenris smiles. “A strong cover story. You’ll make an excellent spy one day.”

He explains how to get there, using landmarks she’s familiar with. “Remember,” he tells her, “do  _not_  take risks.”

“I won’t, I promise.” She throws her arms around him—his skin burns at the pressure, but he embraces her anyway. Then she kisses him on the cheek and stands. “I hope you feel better soon.”

“As do I.” He wouldn’t mind escaping the seized district himself, but he just isn’t strong enough yet. “Good luck.”

She peers out the window for a moment, then cracks the door open and slips out.

Fenris settles down to wait.

——

The night goes on. Twice the orange glow of torchlight seeps through the window, but each time it passes by. Patrols, or search parties. He hopes they don’t start kicking down doors. But Lowtown is full of tiny homes like this one, and it would take a great deal of effort to search them all. More likely, they’ll rely on guards posted along the district wall to alert them if the glowing elf has made a daring escape and given critical information to the Kirkwall command.

His strength returns by degrees, and the burning in his skin dulls. The lyrium, too begins to well with power again. It seems to have forgiven him. He makes a fist, releases it, then tries standing. Escape might be possible now. But he is not as small as Saravh, and his hair is somewhat reflective. Perhaps if it were covered. He goes into the bedroom. There are no blankets on the bed. Fenris sighs and opens the chest in the corner. Clothes. Good. Gamlen’s, unfortunately, but they’ll do.

There’s a quiet creaking from the main room.

 _Venhedis._  Fenris dives behind the bed and slips under it. Were they going door-to-door? Perhaps they simply noticed the hole where the latch should have been. He tries to calm his breathing.

Through the threshold he sees a flood of torchlight and two pairs of boots. Not the sturdy sort that a soldier would wear—these are molded, soft. Meant for silence. This isn’t good. More of those agents who took him in the first place. If either of them is a mage, he’s finished. He flexes his feet, presses his toes to the floor.

The two pairs of boots come into the bedroom. Silently. There’s a murmur. “What a shithole.” A reply. “This whole city’s a shithole.” How dare they speak of Kirkwall like that? Not that they’re wrong, but they’re not  _from_  Kirkwall. They aren’t allowed to disrespect it. Fenris hopes he can kill them. But he’s still weak, and isn’t even armed. They will be.

One pair of boots comes closer. Good. Closer. Almost there.

Fenris darts a hand out, grabs the invader’s ankle, and pulls hard.

A yelp. The woman crashes to the ground. Fenris rolls out to the other side of the bed and scrambles over it, throwing himself blindly forward. He needs to keep them on their heels. If there’s a mage, they mustn’t be allowed time to cast a spell.

The woman’s just getting up when his fist catches her in the jaw, and she goes down again. Hopefully that will be enough to keep her down. The man is casting.  _Venhedis._  Fenris charges, only to be sidestepped; but the casting is interrupted. He presses. His muscles remember their unarmed forms, and he turns his body, launches a fast combination. The man dodges two jabs. The third he takes—then lashes out with a combination of his own. Fenris defends. If he were at full strength that jab would have staggered his opponent at least. He sees movement out of the corner of his eye—

—skips back to dodge the woman’s first dagger-slash, blocks her second. It rips through the flesh of his forearm. Better than the flesh of his neck. She slips sideways, positioning herself in front of the mage, who’s already backed away, casting again. Fenris can’t allow that. He feints and tries to move around her—

—only for her boot to catch him in the hip, and he spins, only just managing to keep his balance. He’s about to try again when the spell falls over him.

A great wall of force slams down on his shoulders, and he crumples to his knees, surrounded by a prism of light. The magic presses in on all sides, crushing away his breath. Desperately he calls on the lyrium, that it might burn the magic away. It surges and sparks, but it simply doesn’t have the power left to combat a focused spell like this. The woman grabs his jaw and tilts his chin up. Her dagger shines brilliant in the white glow.

Fenris shuts his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've been posting a chapter a day, but the next (and last) one is going to be absolutely enormous so don't expect it for a few days. Sorry y'all

Hawke stares at the map spread over the ale-stained table and resists the urge to pack up, run away, and leave Kirkwall to solve its own damned problems.

He can’t do that, of course. Fenris is captured. Aveline is captured. Which means Hawke is in command, along with Donnic, who  _isn’t bloody back yet,_  leaving every poor sap who needs orders and a clap on the shoulder reporting directly to Rowan Hawke, that great and famous Champion of Our Beloved City, and Hawke does not have time for that, because Fenris is captured and Aveline is captured and Starkhaven, for some blasted reason, has mages.

Maybe the Circle’s decided to involve itself in their indignant crusade. Maybe they knew Kirkwall would have mages of its own and decided that compromising their traditional values was acceptable in order to make the annexation go a little smoother. Either way, in a fight every mage is a box of chaos just waiting to be tapped. One person, in the right environment, with the right idea, can turn the tide of a war. And Starkhaven’s got—how many? Reports from the evening’s battle put the best estimate at about a dozen in the forward company.

Not counting those nasty buggers Anders told him about at the end there.

The left hand of Starkhaven’s militia. Precision agents and spies. He wonders how many spies they’ve got behind enemy lines. Plenty, undoubtedly. Hawke sits down and rests his head in his hands. Anders is asleep behind him, sitting in a chair, leaning up against the wall. That seems like a fantastic idea right now.

But of course there is a knock at the door, because someone needs him. Again. “Urgent, sir!”

“Come in,” he calls, and groans to his feet.

The door opens, and a soldier enters with a little girl in tow.

Hawke is suddenly much more awake. “Thank you. You may leave us.” He kicks the chair behind him. “Anders.”

“Hm? What?” He pushes his hood back, rubbing his eyes.

Hawke is already going forward. “Saravh, what are you doing down here?”

She bursts into tears.

——

Good news and bad news.

Hawke sits on the floor and hugs her as she talks into his chest. Aveline and Fenris are both still alive, but Donnic’s captured. They’ve gone straight for the leadership, and it’s worked rather well. Hawke’s the only one left standing. The opened tunnel is bad, and one might mean many. From Saravh’s description, the tunnels can’t be used for troop movements—Kirkwall was thorough in blocking them off, and the one she used was hardly big enough for a single person to travel through at a time. But spies, of course, will have a field day.

She looks up at him when she’s finished. “Are you going to save them?”

“Yes.” Hawke replies, already thinking.

“Can I come with you and help? I learned a trick that makes me really sneaky—“

“No, no, Saravh, I think you’ve been in enough danger for one night.” He kisses her forehead and releases her gently.

“Are you sure? You should see my trick, it’s—“

“Yes, I’m sure.” He stands. “Stay here a moment, I’ve got some orders to give.”

He pokes his head out the door into the narrow hallway and flags down the nearest soldier, telling them to go put a dozen more people on the tunnel to Chrysanthemum Street, and to assign some guards to all the other tunnels, just in case. That’ll have to do for now. A few exploratory forays would be ideal, but first he needs to get Aveline, Donnic, and Fenris back. Until then, everything else is secondary.

“Hawke?”

He shuts the door. “What is it?”

Anders jerks his head. “I really think you should see her trick. Saravh, show him.”

Saravh’s crouched in the corner, the one where the candlelight doesn’t quite reach. She puts her hands over her head and crunches herself up into a tiny ball.

And disappears.

Not quite. There’s a smudge of shadow there—indistinct, a smear of darkness in darkness. Hawke stares. Then the smudge resolves, and Saravh is crouched there again. “See? I told you I was sneaky!”

“Oh, shit,” Hawke mutters.

Anders is grinning.  _“Please_  let me be the one to tell Aveline her daughter’s a mage.”

Hawke rubs his forehead. “Later. I don’t suppose you can do that, by any chance?”

“Well, I’ve never seen it before—that’s not something you learn in the Circle. But I might be able to give it a go.”

“Good. Ask Saravh for tips. I need you with me when we head out.”

Anders’s grin vanishes. “Hawke—you’re not going after them yourself.”

“Of course I am.”

“You’re the commander! You’re the last one standing! If you fail Kirkwall goes into battle tomorrow leaderless!”

“If  _we_  fail.”

_“Hawke—“_

“I don’t trust anyone else to get them back safe. I’ll find someone to take command for the night. Now will you come with me or not?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Anders grumbles.

Hawke comes forward and embraces him. “I missed you.”

Anders pats him on the back with a resigned sigh. “I don’t want to encourage you. I’m only doing it because without me you’ll probably get yourself killed.”

“Hasn’t happened yet!” Hawke detaches himself and rolls his shoulders. “All right, gather what you need, I’ll be back in a moment. I need to make a speech.”

“Wait!” Saravh runs up. “I just remembered something else. It might be important.”

Hawke looks down at her. “What did you remember?”

——

The square is packed with people.

Soldiers in their red and silver. Others who forgo traditional uniforms—Carta, the Redwater Teeth, the Dog Lords. Hawke only announced the speech five minutes ago. Maker. He’d forgotten what it used to be like. People approaching him in the street, shaking his hand. Cheers going up when he walked into taverns. And now he makes a triumphant return to defend his city. It’s all very romantic. Thank the Maker he has an excuse to duck out for a couple of hours. Someone’s put together a makeshift platform for him. That’s…accommodating. He takes a deep breath, smooths his beard, and climbs.

The chatter that fills the air slows and stops. The air is cool now, at this late hour, and the sky dark, prickles of stars peeking out from behind wispy clouds. He calls out, “Citizens of Kirkwall!”

Their faces turn to him, scared and shining in the torchlight. He is their hope now. With Aveline gone and Varric hidden away, he’s all they have. “You may have noticed that we’re under attack. Seems those fancy fuckers in Starkhaven don’t much like us. Not sure why. I’d call us a friendly bunch.” A murmur of laughter. Good. “So they thought they’d march in and clean up the streets, I suppose. I have to admit, our streets are a bit filthy. But by the Maker, that’s the way we like it!” A roar of agreement. Hawke plunges on. “Thing is, when they came in here this evening, they didn’t clean up our streets. They stained them, with blood. Kirkwall blood.”

That quiets them. They gaze up at him, solemn, waiting. Hawke’s hands curl, unsettled. He doesn’t mind being in control—likes it, even; nice to be able to maneuver a situation to his advantage. But this isn’t about his advantage. It’s about his city, and the thousands of people in it who’ve been swept up in a war they don’t understand, one that will crush them anyway given the chance. They need a defender. A champion. And once more it falls to Hawke.

He can’t fail them. He  _will not_.

“We’re not as big as Starkhaven,” he says. “Not as powerful, not as cultured. We’ve got as many gangs as we have noble houses. Our boulevards aren’t lined with golden statues or exotic trees, just the homes of people trying to make an honest living. Or a not-so-honest one. Our taverns don’t serve fine liqueurs, they serve whatever piss the barman brewed up last week, and you’ll drink it down and thank him for it—because after all, you need a rousing bar fight or two to call it a good night and you just can’t do one of those sober.”

He’s got them again. They’re catching, cautious grins splitting faces as they think fondly on their favorite drinking holes, their most memorable fights. “Starkhaven wants to take all that from us!” Hawke snarls. “They’ll rip this place down and replace it with marble houses for their fancy folk! They don’t want to see our dirty, shabby homes! They don’t want to live next to us ordinary people! They don’t want us at all! They want to ignore us, pretend we don’t exist! But this is Kirkwall! This is our city! And  _we will not be ignored!”_

The cheer booms out harsh and full. Hawke finds it ignites something in him, a scraping fire in his chest. “When this is over, we can all get back to killing each other just like we did before,” he calls. “But first—let’s give those poncey bastards a good thrashing!”

The shouting nearly deafens him, filling the air. He’s done what he can; the rest is on them. He hops off the scaffold and finds Brennan applauding, and she sends up a whoop as he approaches. “We’ll give it to ‘em good tomorrow, Ser Hawke!”

“Thank you, guardswoman.” He claps her on the shoulder. “Also, you’re in charge for the next few hours.”

She raises a confused eyebrow. “In charge of what?”

“Oh, you know.” He waves a hand. “Everything.”

She stares, her mouth open. Hawke gives her a winning smile. “Good luck! You can take my room at the Hanged Man, people will know how to find you there.”

Then he brushes past her. There are a few things he needs to retrieve before he departs. 

The Hanged Man is blessedly quiet for the moment—everyone’s still out in the square celebrating. Hawke heads to the back.

Kirkwall can’t win this fight. There’s no hope for these people, yet he’s just given it to them—a lie, a brash, shining lie. What’s the damned point? To get them to hold, in case of a miracle, of course. Because it’s going to take a miracle. He pushes open the door to his makeshift office. His bag’s there, with a generous variety of weapons—

“Great speech. Very inspiring.”

Hawke nearly jumps out of his skin. He whips around, already in a defensive stance.

There’s a dwarf woman leaning against the wall, with flame-red hair. Familiar. She raises her hands. “Whoa, whoa. I’m not here to assassinate you or anything.”

Hawke relaxes. “There aren’t many people who can sneak up on me. Very few, actually. Ser Harding.”

“You—you remember me?” Her face lights up, then she clears her throat. “Sorry. Um, Scout Harding’s fine. Or just Harding. I’m here to inform you that the Inquisition has decided to answer Kirkwall’s call for aid. Our main forces will be a few days coming, so we still need your militia to hold until they get here. But we did have some agents in the area, and they’ll be here by dawn to help where they can.”

Hawke nearly collapses in relief. His speech wasn’t such an enormous lie after all. “What kind of agents?”

“A small company of skirmishers. They’ll harass the Starkhaven camp while everyone’s focused on the city. I think they’ll do some real damage—their leader is very experienced.”

Experienced? Hawke groans.  _“Please_  tell me it’s not the bloody Qunari.”

Harding hesitates. “Um—so do you want me to lie to you, or…”

“He’s got another company? Didn’t his last one come to a rather disastrous end?”

She shrugs. “He’s starting over, I guess.”

Hawke grunts. If he’s forced to express any ounce of gratitude to the Iron Bull, he might just explode. Best to make Aveline do it when it comes to that. “I don’t suppose you brought anyone else as sneaky as you?”

“Sorry, just me. Spies are stretched thin these days.”

Well, he’s already gotten more than he expected. He rummages in his bag, gathering his weapons. “Thank you for coming. If you wouldn’t mind, do you think you could stay and help out Guardswoman Brennan when she comes back here? I’ve just put her in charge, and I get the feeling she’s not used to the role.”

“What? Where are you going?”

“Rescue mission. Starkhaven has Aveline and Donnic. And Fenris. I’m going to retrieve them. Should be back before dawn.” He straightens, armed now. Time to go find Anders. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Wait—“

He turns, his hand on the doorknob.

Harding won’t meet his eye. Is she—blushing? “I—I brought my copy of  _The Champion of Kirkwall.”_

Oh. An autograph request. He half-smiles. It’s the least he can do—

“When you all get back—do you think Fenris would sign it for me?”

Hawke swallows his laughter. “Definitely. I’ll make sure to remind him.”

“Wow, really? I mean—“ She clasps her hands behind her, and her face grows serious. “Thank you. Ser Hawke. Don’t let me keep you.”

“Good luck, Harding.” He slips out into the corridor.

Anders is there, arms folded. “So are we going or what?”

——

The little light bobs in front of them, illuminating the enormous wall of rocks and dirt that bars their way. Would bar their way, if not for the small hole in the middle of it. Anders eyes the hole. “You are  _not_ going to fit in there.”

“Anders. Please. You wound me.” Hawke goes forward. He has to go sideways—his shoulders are twice as wide as the opening—but he ducks his head down, rotates his hips, and slips inside.

A startled laugh. “Fine, yes, I’d forgotten you could do that.”

The magical light goes ahead of him at Anders’s guidance. Anders shouldn’t have any problem following—he’s always been thin, despite Hawke’s pleading that he eat more so he doesn’t look like he is forever just one day away from starvation. The tunnel is quite narrow, but Hawke knows how to navigate tight spaces (they do, after all, make the best hiding places), and he maneuvers his bulk forward with only a minimum of difficulty.

“We’re going after Aveline first, right? How do we find her? They won’t have stayed in that place.”

“No,” Hawke replies. “We find Fenris first. He’s the one in danger.”

“Right—sorry, maybe you didn’t hear Saravh say that those bastards were torturing her mother—“

“Aveline is safe. And so is Donnic. She’s the only one with the information they need, and he’s the only way they have to get it out of her. They won’t be killed—and they won’t give up Varric’s location, either. They’ll hold for this city as long as it takes.” A shower of earth falls on Hawke’s face, and he resists the urge to sneeze. “Meanwhile, those soldiers just watched Fenris scamper away happily, despite the fact that he’d been bound. What would _you_ do if you’d seen him turn ethereal and dash off, shackles be damned?”

“If I’d seen Fenris do that? I don’t know—wave him goodbye? Make sure he’s actually gone? Thank the Maker I don’t have to listen to him anymore?”

Hawke rolls his eyes. “He saved your life, you know.”

“It was a  _joke,_  it was a joke. No, you’re right. If he can’t be held, they’ll kill him instead.”

“Exactly. That’s why he takes priority.” Hawke emerges onto the other side and shakes himself off. “All right, the exit’s close. Anders—how’s your strength?”

Anders emerges from the rubble, dragging his staff after him. “What d’you mean?”

“Now that you’re not possessed anymore.”

“Oh! Quite good, actually.” He brushes the dirt off his robes. “With Justice I was always sort of—afraid of what I could do, or what would happen if I tried to draw too much power. Because Justice was mixed up in all that, and I didn’t want to lose myself to him, even when he was—well. Anyway, the point is I was forced to sharpen my technique because I couldn’t depend on raw power. And now I can depend on both!” He grins. “Not to mention Justice showed me—new paths, or new ways to use the Fade. Efficient ways. I’ve been exploring those.”

Hawke nods in thought. “So you must have come up with plenty of tricks I’ve never seen.”

Anders hesitates. “Well—er. Mostly I’ve just been improving the spells I already have.”

Hawke heaves a sigh. He doesn’t know why he expected anything else. “So, better fireballs.”

“Better fireballs.”

“You know, the most essential part of this mission is stealth. Fireballs are  _not_  stealthy.”

“I  _can_  do other things, in case you’d forgotten.” Anders looks vaguely affronted. “Ice is quiet.”

“Good. Do that then. Come on.”

A hundred yards later he pulls up short. Orange torchlight flickers down before them, from an opening high above. “They’ll have guards at the top,” Hawke murmurs. “Can you do anything about that?”

Anders thinks about it. “Maybe. Sort of a toss-up whether or not it works.”

“I’ll take whatever you can give me. Let me get up there first.”

He climbs the ladder. His daggers and throwing knives are all tucked away in their own leather sheaths; his poisons all have their own slots. He does not clank or jangle. When he’s close to the top he stops and waits.

A gust of freezing air gushes down the hole. That’s Anders. Hawke launches himself upward.

Four guards. Shit. He does a split-second assessment—hardly perfect, but enough for instinct to fill in the gaps in his observation. One’s frozen solid, the second nearly so. The third is staggered, and the fourth seems a bit chilled but little else. Hawke goes for the torch first, held in the hand of the second guard, and kicks it to the ground, stomping it out. The alleyway goes pitch-black.

Now for the killing.

Hawke doesn’t mind fighting in the dark. It’s no use trying to discern where his opponents are—picking out shapes in the blackness takes too much time. Movement is much more obvious, surfaces changing their angle and the faint ambient light shifting to accommodate them. That and the rustle of cloth, the grinding of boots against earth, and he knows where his opponents are going, and where they will be when he attacks.

The Starkhaven standard-issue armor isn’t bad—hauberk, cuirass, spaulders, cowters, and sabatons—but they’ve left their soldiers with open-faced helmets. Good for visibility in battle; bad for fighting a man with two daggers who doesn’t mind stabbing a few people in the eye. The one who avoided the spell flails a hand up. Hawke assembles the man’s shape in his mind and strikes. The dagger pierces his eye unhindered. Next. This one’s shifting—leg sliding back, elbow tucked, fist out. An unarmed stance. At least he knew the time it took to draw his weapon would be enough for Hawke to kill him. Hawke feints, watches the stance shift to one side, goes to the other, grabs the man’s face from behind and rams the dagger down his throat. Next the one who held the torch. No movement, but the ice shines on her face. He levers the knife under her chin, getting behind the chainmail that covers her neck, and slits her throat.

Something hits the dirt next to him. An arrow. Archers on the rooftops, shooting into the dark now.

The fourth guard, frozen, is likely dead, but Hawke finishes her just in case, and makes sure the others aren’t moving either. Then he crouches beside the tunnel opening and calls down softly, “Archers. Stay there, I’ll take care of it.”

Another arrow strikes the corpse next to him. He slips away to the end of the alley.

The Dog Lords’ storehouse. They chose the building because it’s made of stone, and would help the animals stay cool in the summer. Hawke flexes his fingers. He likes stone walls, but the climb will leave him exposed. Hopefully the shadows in the alley are too deep for the archers to get a bead on him.

He finds a handhold and ascends.

There are plenty of crevices between the great carved blocks. Hawke can’t see them, but his fingers find them easily enough, and his boots cling to the stone. There’s a shout—“He’s going up the wall!” Shit. He climbs faster. An arrow nicks the back of his thigh, but it’s at a bad angle and his armor deflects it. Another strikes the wall next to his head. Shit.

Finally he comes over the top and flattens himself on his belly. With any luck it’ll make him disappear.

He recalls the arrows, the angles they made with the street, the wall. Left. All from the left. So he goes that way, scuttling like a lizard over the roof. If Anders were here, he’d be laughing. But Hawke will sacrifice however much dignity he needs to in order to get his friends back safe.

A pair of archers loom before him, more visible up here in the faint starlight than the soldiers were in the shadowed alleyway. Their bows are pointed into the distance. They must have thought he’d buggered off. Not so. They sight him on his approach, and he waits until they’ve adjusted their trajectories before rolling to the side. The two arrows fly behind him. By then it’s too late; they haven’t time to draw again before he’s upon them. He kills the first, yanks his dagger out of her eye and finds the second’s off running. Hawke grins and picks up the fallen bow, nocking an arrow and drawing. He doesn’t shoot in combat much—prefers to get up close—but he’s done plenty of hunting since he left Kirkwall.

He fires. The retreating shape jerks and crumples.

A quick glance around him. No more archers, not nearby, anyway. If there were he’d have been shot at again by now. Instead he pursues the runner just in case. The woman rises just as Hawke nears, clutching her lower back, where the shaft of the arrow is protruding. Hawke kicks her down again and kills her.

He takes a breath.

There are torches up here on the rooftops, far away, drifting slowly through the night. It might be beautiful if they weren’t being carried by people who want to kill him. Hawke scoops up the woman’s body, carries it back, and drops it into the alley, rolling the other archer over the edge to join her. After a second’s consideration, he picks up the bow and quiver and slings them over his back. Then he descends and sticks his arm into the tunnel entrance. “All right, it’s safe.”

Anders grasps his wrist, and Hawke pulls him up.

They throw the bodies down the tunnel. Missing guards will buy a little more time than dead guards. Anders has put his light out, but Hawke’s eyes have begun to adjust, and he leads the way. “We should go by the rooftops. Fewer patrols up there. Let’s see, they must have got up somehow…”

At last he finds a rope dangling from the side of the building. Good. Anders isn’t a climber like Hawke. Once they’ve made it to the roof, Hawke counts the torches in the distance. Five of them, three that might intersect with their route, two further away. But… “Hm. We should take all these patrols. No one left to investigate why the torches have stopped moving.”

“I’ve got your back,” Anders says.

They slip through the night as ghosts.

There is a strategy. Two-man patrols. From afar Anders freezes them first—a disparate spell with diminished power, but it keeps either of them from calling out for help. Then he focuses on the torchbearer while Hawke shoots the other one. The result is a frozen statue holding up a still-burning torch. At a distance it looks like nothing more than a person standing still.

No witnesses. No one knows they are here. It’s the safest strategy. Yet there’s a buzz in the back of Hawke’s mind—Fenris. Fenris is in danger. Saravh said he was weak, gasping for breath. Taking out the patrols requires them to deviate from their route to Gamlen’s house. What if Starkhaven gets to him while Hawke and Anders are mucking about up here?

There’s a light pressure on Hawke’s shoulder. “It’s all right.” Anders. “He’ll be fine. He’s a tough bastard if nothing else.”

“Right.” Hawke strides ahead. “Still, we should hurry.”

The last patrol goes as easily as the other four. Five glowing torches dot the skyline. Easy to get up here and think nothing’s wrong. Good. Now on to the important part.

Blackhand Street. Hawke’s avoided the place, although he still knows it just like he knows the rest of Lowtown. The area around it is dark. Strategically it’s unimportant, and it’s one of the poorer parts of Lowtown; no reason Starkhaven would move in. He and Anders drop to street level from a couple of blocks out. They creep forward, stopping at each corner to check for enemy soldiers. No one’s ever there, of course. But it does not do to abandon caution, not this deep inside enemy lines.

The last corner. Hawke presses himself against the wall, peers around it. He knows where Gamlen’s house is, and searches it out automatically. Finds it.

Sees the light in the window.

A hollow rushing in his ears. He sprints forward, terror seizing his gut. It’s too late. He’s too late. He was wrong. An echoed memory thrums through his head, the rumble of a demon’s voice— _Fenris is going to die, just like your family._  Only a matter of time before he slipped up. Only a matter of time before he let Fenris die too. The door is open. No. No. He dashes inside, then lurches to a halt. After so many minutes traveling in the dark, the white glow from the bedroom is blinding, and he flinches, shielding his eyes.

A gust of cold air. Anders’s voice. “Hawke,  _move!”_

Move. He has to keep trying. He throws himself into the bedroom, finding bleary dark shapes in the light. Silver hair—Fenris, that’s Fenris, with a figure crouched in front of him. Hawke tackles the figure. An ungainly maneuver, to be sure, but he’s got plenty of bulk to back it up, and he hears a snap from beneath him, and a grunt of pain. The glow vanishes, finally, and Hawke, half-blind, throws an elbow down at the person below him. It’s badly aimed, and skates off the crown of her head. Meanwhile, her fist snaps up and punches him in the nose.

 _That_  hurts. But his muscles move on instinct— _defend, defend._  He jams an arm down between their bodies, feels the woman’s knife deflect off of it, leaving a nice big gash. Better than a gash in his gut. Suddenly she’s freezing cold, and Hawke stops, squinting. Her face is frosted with ice.

He sits back on his feet, blinking. Silver hair. Fenris, muttering something. 

Hawke grabs his face and kisses him.

A metallic taste. Blood. Oh—that would be his blood, from that punch in the nose. Fenris doesn’t seem to mind, kissing him back with an ardor Hawke is only too happy to return. He wraps both arms around Fenris’s slim body, pulls him closer—with Fenris’s fingers stroking his cheek, running through his hair—

A noise of revulsion from the doorway. “Still enjoy your public displays of affection, I see.”

Hawke kisses Fenris for another moment before he breaks away to apologize. “Sorry. It’s just—Fenris, I thought you were dead.”

“As did I.” Fenris tucks a fallen strand of hair behind his ear and looks down—is he embarrassed? “Thank you for saving me. If you had not intervened…”

“That woman would have sliced your throat open.” Anders folds his arms. “Only I slowed her down first. You’re welcome.”

"Saravh is safe?" Fenris asks.

"Yes," Anders tells him.

“And Aveline? Did you manage to find her?”

“No.” Hawke holds his arm. That was a messy slice. He notes Fenris has a nearly identical one on his own forearm. “Didn’t know where to start looking. Don’t suppose you have any ideas?”

“As a matter of fact.” Fenris stands, shaky; Hawke rises to steady him. “While I was waiting here, I remembered they had guards posted outside the building where they kept her. Not in Starkhaven uniforms—in those drab colors they were all wearing. They might have done the same in the new location. I’m sorry, I should have told Saravh.”

“Well, we’re here now.” Hawke grins. Relief thuds through him with the pumping of his blood. “Let’s do some hunting, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: my notes for this chapter ended with "and then they bust in and save Fenris and his tiny cute ass"


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to split the giant chapter into a small chapter and...a still-giant chapter. So here's the small one.

Fenris very much wants to kiss Hawke again—preferably several more times. He was, after all, nearly killed only a moment ago (and the mage’s noises of disgust never fail to cheer him up). But there is work to be done.

“How are you feeling?” Hawke asks.

Fenris tries again to make a fist. “My strength is…still returning. But I can fight.”

“Good. Here.”

Hawke holds out a weapon. Fenris eyes it. “That’s a dagger.”

“Yes.”

Fenris pushes it aside. “I will be more dangerous unarmed.”

Hawke sighs, looking mildly hurt. He’s always taken Fenris’s lack of proficiency—and lack of interest in gaining proficiency—with daggers as something of a personal slight. “Have it your way.”

Anders kneels. “Let me take a look at that cut.”

The gash on his forearm, from blocking the woman’s dagger-strike. Bleeding briskly, but after a moment with Anders the flesh is pulled together, pink and shining. Hawke’s wound is closed with similar ease. Fenris had forgotten what a luxury instantaneous healing was. Certainly not something he and Hawke had on the run.

Hawke jerks his head. “We’ve cleared the rooftops. Come on, let’s go.”

They move through the night. Fenris gets the feeling he’s limiting their pace, but there’s nothing to be done about that. Hawke kisses his cheek and asks him to please stay back from the edges because his hair is rather shiny. Fenris rolls his eyes and obeys. He shows them where he and Aveline were originally held—the building now dark, with no one outside. Hawke thinks for a moment, then picks a direction.

He and Anders take opposite edges of their route, peering down at the streets, glancing back at each other and shaking their heads at each block. Along the way they pass one of the frozen torchbearers, his face caught in a gasp of horror. It’s somewhat disturbing, although Fenris decides his own blood-soaked decimation of the Starkhaven forces earlier this evening was hardly any better.

Then he finds their journey has been halted, and stops.

Anders is staring out across Lowtown. Hawke crosses the rooftop and comes up beside him. “What is it?” he asks softly.

Anders nods. “No torches.”

Fenris lingers a few feet back, but he approaches, just enough to see what all the fuss is about.

He noticed during his flight that the flickering dots of orange were posted every block or two, at least in the sections of the district Starkhaven had occupied. The same is true in the street that stretches before them here.

Except for a broad dark spot in the middle.

Hawke claps Anders on the back, then starts and grabs him when he nearly falls off the roof. “Sorry! Don’t know my own strength. Let’s go see.”

They creep forward. Again Fenris curls his hand into a fist. Better. He’s getting better. The lyrium is warm in his skin and muscles. He could kill again. When they’re close Hawke motions for them both to stay, then drops low and goes to investigate on his own.

Fenris waits with Anders in the breathless night. When he looks over he discovers Anders is grinning, and he starts to grin too. It has been a long time since they’ve followed Hawke into a situation where one wrong step will bring the sky falling down on top of them. Fenris has missed it, badly. Has even missed the mage at his back, truth be told, although he has no intention of admitting that out loud.

Hawke stands tall and points down, over the edge of the roof.

_Found them._

The building is three stories high. The drop might be jarring, but it’s doable. The two guards, nearly invisible in the shadowed street, lounge to either side of the door.

Anders casts. Fenris jumps, Hawke beside him. Ah. The fall is much easier when cushioned by someone else’s body. Fenris gets his hand around the man’s throat to prevent shouting for help, until he feels the skin sheen over with ice so that his palm sticks to it. He stands, shaking his hand. Hawke’s cleaning off his dagger, sticky with blood. The second guard’s throat bleeds into the dirt. 

Anders drops down next, accompanied by a blast of wind that slows the last moment of his fall. Still, he stumbles forward, his arms flailing, and whisper,  _“Ow._  You two made it look so easy.”

“That’s because it is easy,” Fenris tells him.

Anders glares. Fenris raises an eyebrow, daring him to shoot back.

A cry from inside the house.

No lights from the windows. They must have her in a cellar again. Fenris appropriates a shortsword from one of the deceased guards while Hawke eases the door open and slips inside. The main floor is deserted. A low moan of pain, muffled. Hawke beckons them forward, crouched in front of another door. He holds up three fingers. Fenris watches them tick down. Three, two, one.

No need to plan. They’ve done this a thousand times. Anders casts to cover Fenris’s charge. Fenris launches himself into the middle of them and starts killing. Hawke darts around the edges, picking off those afraid to get in close. The same deadly strategy that carried them through every battle, no matter how harrowing.

Fenris kicks the door open. A blast of force rushes up against him from the bottom of the stairs—Anders’s work, a detonation to stun them (and likely Aveline and Donnic too, but Anders does not specialize in precision). Fenris descends. There is killing to be done.

This cellar is smaller than the last. Close quarters. A shortsword is the weapon of choice here. Good, because there are at least a dozen enemies slumped dazed at the periphery of the room, and he can’t even take advantage of their staggered state because he needs to— _there’s_  Donnic, still bound, and Fenris grabs him one-handed and slides him unceremoniously over to where Aveline’s chair lies toppled. Now they’re both in one place, and he plants himself in front of them as the Starkhaven agents begin to rise, drawing their weapons. Fenris makes a quick count. A dozen plus one.

He will need help.

His enemies have recovered now. A couple of them turn and head up the stairs—they will be dead very soon. The rest fan out to face Fenris. Specialists like these are likely trained in attacking two-on-one, or even three-on-one; Fenris knows how to draw accidental injury when he is attacked by groups, but he can’t depend on that here.

Two dart forward, a man and a woman.

The man strikes first, a shortsword thrust that Fenris diverts, levering his own weapon so the thrust slides into the woman’s path. She skips back and goes for Donnic, lying on the ground—but Fenris lashes a foot out, and it catches her on the bridge of the nose. Her head snaps back. He would kill her but the man is attacking again, a quick pommel-strike Fenris is too late to block. It opens up his cheek.  _That_  hurt.

Fire blooms.

At last. The heat sears the air, but Fenris is used to it— _was_  used to it, many years ago, and he remembers as if no time has passed at all. The man curls reflexively and shields his head. Fenris takes what is offered and kills him. The woman is next; she has not yet recovered from the kick to her nose. Two dead. How many more still to go?

Hawke is in the room, his daggers at work. He will be discovered soon enough in quarters this tight, but Fenris can delay that, and lets out a shout, charging forward. More blooms of fire—half of them don’t hit anything, but they do the job, sowing panic and disorder among the still-confused agents, who down in this tiny cellar have nowhere to run. But Fenris advances between the bursts of flame without fear, and he kills, and kills again. They hardly defend themselves against his assault, and he finds himself a little disappointed—the rush of blood in his ears, the pounding of his heart, all for this?

Finally he stands, sword at the ready, and finds no one else standing before him.

“Donnic?” Aveline’s voice, half-hysterical. “Donnic!”

Hawke’s already there, cutting Donnic’s bonds. Fenris works on Aveline, slicing with care through the ropes that bind her to the chair. She still bears the injures he saw inflicted on her earlier but he sees no new ones.

Anders kneels beside Donnic. “Let me take a look,” he mutters.

Fenris can’t pick out all the things they’ve done. Burn marks, yes, on his face, chest, and arms. From heat, but in places the skin is also curled and discolored in a way that makes Fenris think of the acids some slavers carried with them in Tevinter—each flask a weapon, of course, to be thrown at an enemy, but also a tool to punish unruly captives. Finally he gets Aveline free, and she crawls over, holds Donnic’s face, strokes his hair. “I’m here, I’m here, we’re safe now, please—“

Anders’s hands glow moon-white. Donnic coughs, says hoarsely, “I’m. I’m all right.”

“That may be an overstatement,” Anders replies. “Those fingers won’t grow back. But otherwise there won’t be any permanent damage. Except, well, some nasty scars.”

“Saravh?” Donnic asks. “Is she safe?”

“Yes, fine.” Hawke’s cleaning his daggers again. “I told her to stay in the command room at the Hanged Man. I left Brennan in charge while I’m gone.”

Donnic laughs weakly. “Oh dear.”

Aveline looks stricken. “Brennan? I mean—she cares about Kirkwall, and she’s excellent with a blade, but—“

“She’s not alone,” Hawke adds hastily. “Aveline, the Inquisition’s sending forces. They’re going to drive Starkhaven out! Their forward agent’s helping out in command.”

Aveline slumps and covers her face. “Thank the Maker. We’re not going to lose the city.”

Anders helps Donnic sit up, and he coughs again, holding a mangled hand to his chest. “Still, we should get back. Brennan will, er. Need help.”

“Right. Hang on.” Aveline goes to the arrayed corpses and shuffles through them, then lifts one. His head lolls. “Who got this one?”

Fenris recognizes him. Lorne, their leader. Hawke raises a hand. “That was me, I think.”

Aveline comes over and socks him in the arm.

“Ow!” Hawke rubs the spot. “What was that for?!”

“I told him  _I_  was going to kill him! I swore it! And then you did it instead!”

“How was I supposed to know that?!”

“And you didn’t even leave any of the others for me to kill!”

“Yes, well, I was sort of focused on trying to stop them from hurting us—“

Aveline makes a noise of frustration, then exhales. “Fine. All right. Now where’s my armor?”

It’s been stashed away in a corner. Fenris sorts it out while Anders keeps working on Donnic. He knew they’d both be alive—Starkhaven needed both of them, and anyway, prisoners are always more valuable alive than dead—but he’s still incredibly relieved. They’ve become an integral part of his life here—family more than friends. Their loss would have devastated him, he knows. One of the costs of not being alone any longer. Yet he would not go back to his and Hawke’s life on the run for anything.

He stands, holding Aveline’s breastplate. She embraces him.

She, like Fenris (and unlike Hawke), has never been especially demonstrative with her affection. The embrace is thus very unexpected. Fenris freezes. “Er.”

“Bless you for saving Saravh.” Aveline squeezes him—gently. “Thank you. If they’d had her I don’t know what I would have done.”

He relaxes, folds his free arm around her back. “You do not need to thank me. I only wish I could have done more.” He decides to wait on telling her that he sent her daughter alone on a furtive flight through the occupied streets of Lowtown. Her gratitude might fade then. He helps her put on her armor, closing the buckles, tightening the straps. The burn mark on her face just peeks over the wing of the helmet that covers her cheek. By the time they’re done, Donnic looks much improved, and he gives them a thumbs-up. Fenris notices he only has half his thumb left, although he appears to be taking the fact rather well. The relief of being alive must have softened the blow.

Hawke’s at the top of the stairs, and he beckons. “All clear. Let’s go.”

It takes a bit of searching in the dark patch around the building, but at last Hawke spots the rope hanging down above the street, a gift of Lowtown’s less lawful folk. Fenris is pleased at how fast he climbs. The fight seems to have energized him. Aveline is right behind him the whole way, even in full armor and with sword and shield at her back. Donnic is last in line; he ties the rope around himself, and they haul him up.

The dawn has just begun to break, a bare wisp of light brushing the clouds in the east as breath on glass. Although Fenris is glad this awful night is at last drawing to an end, he’s also aware that daylight means exposure, not to mention the stirring of the Starkhaven forces arrayed below them. Hawke leads them across the rooftops, towards Chrysanthemum Street. The route zigzags slightly, around the torches below, which might be stationary but might be carried by street patrols. Aveline in her armor is not so quiet, and it’s best to raise as little suspicion as possible.

The alley, at last. Fenris can just make out the mural, the bearlike Mabaris snarling at passers-by. Hawke finds the rope to lead them down, and they reach the tunnel entrance. Fenris is about to head down when—

“Wait.”

He turns.

Hawke’s face is obscured by shadow, but his tone is quiet and serious. “Saravh told me something else, just after she got back.” He takes a breath. “She overheard her captors talking while they brought her through the tunnels. She found out where Starkhaven’s forward general is, as well as the leader of their mage forces. They’re both holed up just south of here, in the alienage.”

Ah.

“I know it’s dangerous,” Hawke says. “They’ll be surrounded by soldiers. Even if we do survive the fight, everyone in bloody Lowtown will know we’re there. All our escape options are shit at best.” He cracks a smile in the dark. “It’s been a long time. You’ve all got your own lives now. Aveline, you have a family. Fenris, we’ve only just finished building the house. Anders, you’ve been doing good all over Ferelden and the Marches. So, any of you—refuse and we’ll leave. Back through the tunnel to safety. But Maker.” He shakes his head. “I  _really_  want to kill these bastards.”

Anders heaves a sigh. “I have to admit, we’re not going to get a better chance than this. And who knows? If we do succeed, maybe this city will finally forgive me. At least a little.”

It’s hardly a choice that needs considering. “I remain at your side, Hawke,” Fenris says. “As always.”

Aveline gazes south, toward the alienage. Hers must be the most difficult decision. She does, as Hawke said, have a family. But they are not the only ones she protects—all of Kirkwall is hers, every citizen whose home is lost or destroyed, every soldier who stands against Starkhaven’s merciless advance. Fenris wonders who she is thinking of now—Saravh, or the company that stood at her back this evening, ready to give their lives for their city.

“Aveline.” Donnic comes forward and takes her hand. “It’s all right. I know what you want to do.”

“Oh, Maker.” She whirls and embraces him, holding him tight. “Take care of Saravh. Take care of our people. And for Andraste’s sake.” She hiccups out a laugh. “Don’t let Brennan do anything rash.”

It’s decided. Anders picks up the fallen torch that lies beside the tunnel opening and lights it again. Donnic wishes them all good luck and then enters the tunnel, the torch clutched in his mangled hand as he uses his other to descend the ladder.

Hawke takes a deep breath. Behind him the painted Mabari snarls at them, teeth bared. “Thank you all,” he says. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh yes I do,” Aveline growls.

“So do I,” Anders adds. “If I’m not there, who’s going to heal you when you inevitably get hurt doing something reckless?”

Hawke half-grins. “I usually prefer to think of it as brave.”

“Much as I hate to agree with the mage, I think ‘reckless’ is the better word.” Fenris leans up and kisses Hawke anyway. “Now let us go, before the light betrays us.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter! As promised, it is giant, coming in at ~7.6k words. I have very limited computer access at the moment so I typed most of it up in a rush from my notebook, which means I'm 100% sure there are typos. Apologies in advance.

“I’ve got a plan.”

Fenris, moving over the rooftops, tries not to get his hopes up. Some of Hawke’s plans are brilliant. Some are quite the opposite.

“The alienage has its own wall, its own gate,” Hawke tells them. “So we get inside, shut the gate, bust the locking mechanism so it can’t be opened again except by force. Then they can’t call for reinforcements.”

“The mechanism is on the outside,” Aveline hisses. “We can’t destroy it after we’re in!”

“I can.” Fenris glances again to the east. Definitely getting lighter. “After I destroy the switch, I’ll just walk through the wall.”

“Right,” Hawke continues. “So we lock ourselves in.”

“With the general,” Anders says.

“Yes.”

“And the mage leader.”

“Yes.”

“And their respective retinues.”

“Yes.”

“So, you mentioned escape plans earlier…”

“Right!” Hawke holds out an arm to stop them, glances at the street below, and motions them forward over the narrow bridge. “There’s a tunnel opening in the alienage.”

“Yes, I know,” Aveline says. “We blocked that one off.”

“Well, my plan is, after we’ve killed everyone—“ so few words for such an absurd task— “we drop down into the tunnel and…hope they’ve cleared it.”

No one responds for a moment. Then a squabble of whispers, Fenris expressing his resignation, although the others are more disbelieving, having plainly not spent enough time around Hawke these past years to realize this is  _exactly_  the sort of plan to expect out of him—

“Yes, yes, I know, it’s a shit plan! But it’s the only one I’ve got!” He looks over his shoulder at them. “Does anyone have anything better?”

Silence.

“That’s what I thought. Anders, if the tunnel  _isn’t_  cleared, could you do anything about it?”

Anders shrugs. “Maybe. Depends how much is in the way—“

“A lot,” Aveline cuts in.

“Ah. Still maybe. Might bring the whole tunnel down on our heads, though, which I suppose doesn’t particularly matter, since if I can’t clear it we’ll just be killed anyway once the reinforcements have got that gate open.”

“We only need a small opening,” Hawke tells him. “Just big enough for us to crawl through.”

“Right. Should be very easy to defend our backs as we’re clambering through a tiny pitch-black hole in the rock—“

Fenris rolls his eyes. “I will hold them off while the rest of you escape.”

Anders snorts. “Listen, that’s very noble of you, but I think Hawke might be sad if you died.“

“I won’t die! How many times must I tell you—“

“Yes, yes, you’re very powerful now, but even you can’t cover your ass while you’re crawling through a tiny cramped tunnel—“

“Please tell me you’re not actually this  _dense_ —“

“Will the two of you  _be quiet!”_  Aveline snaps. “Maker, six years past and you  _still_  can’t stop fighting!”

“Yes. Please stop fighting,” Hawke says, in a tone of voice that makes it clear he sort of wishes they would keep going.

“We still haven’t solved the problem of how to escape!” Anders shoots back.

Fenris gives him a nasty smile. “I can walk through the blockage.  _Mage.”_

Anders blinks, then presses his hands to his eyes. “I’m an idiot,” he mutters.

“Ah, something we agree on.”

 _“Hey!_  You couldn’t do that ghost thing last time we fought together!”

It’s a fair point, which doesn’t mean Fenris is willing to cede it. Instead he shrugs.

“All right! The tunnel. Good.” Hawke nods. “We have a plan.”

“Yes, now what about killing them?” Aveline asks. “Is there a plan for that?”

Hawke thinks about it. “Er…you and Fenris run into the middle of things, Anders stands in the back, I pick at the edges?”

She sighs. “So, no plan then.”

“It’s a good strategy! It’s always worked before!”

“Oh, Maker. I suppose you’re right.” She takes a deep breath. “Then let’s do this.”

They must go silent then, and slow their pace—soldiers are appearing on the streets, a few early risers already in full armor, others shuffling about in their clothes, rubbing their eyes and yawning. Fenris almost feels badly until he remembers that they would try to kill him on sight, and he reassures himself with the knowledge that this is the way of the world—the blunt stupidity in how prideful institutions scatter thousands of lives for a chance at glory, like a Rivaini seer throwing mouse-bones on the hard ground to pin the course of the future.

Only for a careless foot to walk by and crush them.

Hawke stops them again, and Fenris curls his toes into the rough wood of the roof. They’re getting close.

A few more rooftops, passed over with eminent caution. They’ve arrived. The alienage isn’t guarded—not that it needs to be; through the gates Fenris can see soldiers and mages crossing the square, half-dressed. Plenty of them. “There are too many,” he murmurs.

“Agreed,” Hawke replies. “We need to draw some of them out. Anders?”

“On it.” He squints down the street toward a wooden structure that juts two stories above the surrounding buildings. Fenris recognizes it—Lowtown’s most notorious gambling house. “How far d’you think that is?” Anders asks. “A quarter mile? Maybe?”

Fenris rolls his eyes. “Just do it, mage.”

“ ‘Just do it?’ “ Anders puts on an affront. “Do you know how difficult this is? To change the stuff of the world from a quarter mile away?”

“Do you know how difficult it is to put up with your posturing?”

Aveline groans. “Andraste give me some bloody patience.”

Anders grins. “It isn’t posturing if it’s true.” Then he raises his arms, his face drawing in concentration.

A quarter mile away the building bursts into flame.

Anders drops his arms again. “Oh, I am  _very_  good.”

Fenris watches the blaze rise against the deep purple sky. Shouting from below. Soldiers stream out of the alienage toward the fire, chainmail askew, helmets crammed on heads. Good. The chaff winnowing away. Hawke finds a route down the back of the building, and they drop into an alleyway, holding there until the stream of people visible dashing down the main street has slowed. Then they go forward. No count, no moment to prepare. The advantage of confidence is theirs, but they must take it.

On the street a soldier nearly collides with them. Hawke kills him and slips past the gates, Aveline at his side, Anders just behind. The black iron lever is built into the sandstone wall, and Fenris grasps it and pulls.

It doesn’t budge. Ah. This lever was meant to be pulled by more than one person. Fenris is not very heavy, but he  _is_  strong, and he summons every scrap of power in his muscles, calls even on the lyrium should it decide to help him—

The white-hot bands wrap tight around his limbs. His shoulders and wrists scream under the stress, but the lever snaps down, and there’s the shrieking of chains as the gates slam shut.

The sound draws attention. Down the avenue a hundred faces turn to stare at him. Fenris grasps the lever with a spectral hand and severs it. The bar clatters to the ground. Soldiers draw their weapons and rush toward him.

Fenris grins and waves at them as he backs through the wall into the alienage.

Shouting already, arcing through the air. The general and the mage commander are likely quartered here, on the square, a central location. They need to be killed before the rest of the alienage rouses and comes to their aid. Fenris finds he is being attacked and draws. A sword-chop he parries, a shield-bash he swivels away from. This man is plainly still not awake, and leaves his side exposed. Fenris braces the shortsword pommel against his palm and drives it through the main’s mail, up under his ribs. That’s one. He clears the blade. The shield is strapped to the man’s arm. Shame. No time. He turns and assesses.

Aveline’s back is to the tree. A half-dozen soldiers are on her, clamoring for the chance to kill Kirkwall’s guard-captain. Aveline defends, kills, defends again. Anders is nowhere to be seen—good; an accessible mage is a dead mage. Hawke is likewise gone. He may be searching for their targets. A new group of soldiers breaks out onto the square. They spot Fenris, alone, and swarm toward him. He needs a better weapon. Time is their greatest threat. The rest of the alienage waking, the iron gates being broken down. He kills much faster with a two-handed weapon. Not traditional for the battlefield, unfortunately, and thus harder to scavenge.

Barked orders cut the air. Past the tree, across the square stands a man—ah. There’s the forward general, decked in shining plate forged of what looks like veridium. No ordinary soldier could afford armor like that. He appears to be flanked by an honor guard of four—two with bucklers, one with a tower shield, and one carrying…

A greatsword. Excellent.

A violent spray of ice halts the small contingent who had almost reached Fenris. Useful having a mage at his back again. Fenris darts around them and sprints for the general, his bare feet pushing off the cobblestones.

The honor guards aren’t awake yet either. He watches them start at his approach and form up, the one with the greatsword in front of the other three. Fenris is aware that if he takes the man head-on, he will lose. A shortsword can’t block a weapon like that. Might be able to parry, if he catches the strike early. But the range advantage is too great. Without a shield, he’ll never be able to get in close without paying for it.

Not head-on, then. This is not the time to hold anything back. So as he runs he becomes a ghost, his flesh washing into little points of light from head to toe. The man tries to block. Fenris goes through his weapon, into his body, and materializes.

The corpse falls apart around him. Gore coats his back. Ugh. A clatter in his blood-clogged ears. He spins, gropes, and snatches up the greatsword from the street.

A fine weapon, well-balanced and well-honed. He’s still disoriented—the price of slipping between two forms—but he raises a guard on instinct and immediately receives a blow, a longsword-edge striking the flat of his blade and locking there, his opponent pushing him back.

The gore is warm and wet on his back and legs, in his hair. Not just an aside. He thinks like Hawke.  _How can I use this?_  A ghost coated in blood, who killed his first opponent inside of three seconds. That is something to be afraid of. As his vision finally resolves from shapes and splotches into distances and objects, he lets out a battle cry, an animal snarl, and shoves the longsword away. A second’s hesitation, a second too long before their bring their shield to bear. Enough for a chop. He brings his weapon across, and the edge bites into the soldier’s arm.

The blow is accompanied by a burst of flame.

The soldier yells in terror. Fenris draws back and chops again, at their neck. They should parry. They don’t. Blood sprays in an eager gout, forceful enough to lash Fenris’s face. Fire explodes from the juncture of blade and flesh. Fenris allows himself to laugh. Oh yes, it is good to have a mage at his back again. He kicks the corpse away and bellows,  _“Who is next to face me?!”_

The remaining two hesitate. The general does not. He unships his flail, grasps it in both hands, and steps forward.

_Venhedis._

Fire dances at Fenris’s feet. Flails are extremely difficult to master and even harder to defend. Especially, Fenris thinks as he eyes his opponent, when the weapon is as big as he is. But again, he needn’t face this man head-on if—

_“Fenris!”_

Anders’s voice. A warning. Fenris hits the ground and rolls. The itching scrape of spirit energy brushes past him. Ah. The mages are awake.

The flail. Fenris rolls again, and the spiked steel head smashes into the cobblestones where he just was. No time now to become a ghost. The split-second of focus it requires will kill him. At the very least the honor guard have abandoned this engagement. A flail does not discriminate between enemy and ally.

A shuddering  _boom_  from the iron gates. They’re trying to break in.

As Fenris scrambles to his feet he hopes Hawke’s realized that Anders has just given away his position with that warning and will need defending. Not to mention Fenris needs to find the damned Starkhaven mage who tried to hit him just now. Spirit energy, likely not rank-and-file—either a specialist, as those who captured him earlier, or the mage-commander. But he can’t search them out, not when he’s—dancing backward fro the flail-head, circling—keeping the general occupied. He’ll have to trust Anders to defend him, while Hawke defends Anders. This is how it works. He remembers now—dodges a wide sweep—that this is the way it goes. He does not fight alone. He has friends to support him.

The flail-head lashes out. Fenris circles to the outside of the blow, then moves in. The general strikes out with the haft. Damn. Fenris blocks with the strong of his sword. Even so, it sets the blade ringing, the hilt vibrating against his palm so hard it hurts. The general pivots back and flicks the head out again, a close sweep. Not much power, but the chain will knock Fenris’s legs from under him.

A memory barges to the fore of his mind—here, in the alienage, waiting while Hawke talked to that halfbreed apostate’s mother, watching the children play, running, fighting with sticks. Skipping rope.

The spiked chain rotates around the general. Fenris times it and jumps.

One foot and then the other. Too easy. The general hesitates. Plainly he didn’t think Fenris would still be here. Only with heavy armor can one expect to face a flail and live. He must not have trained against those in light armor, like Fenris, who might simply leap over his weapon. It has to be now. Fenris calls on the lyrium.

Only for a blast of spirit energy to send him crashing to the ground, substantial once more and half-dazed. Too many enemies. Fenris tries to drag himself out of the way. The flail. The flail.

A shower of frozen flakes. Fenris squints up. A shield of ice arcs over him, cracked under the spiked head. He shakes off the lingering enervation of the spirit magic and scrambles to his feet as the general tries to yank his weapon free.

A fraction of a gap, the flail still caught. Fenris charges.

The haft jabs out. Fenris is already in motion when the blunt steel smashes his nose in and sends stars spinning up into his vision. But he has the momentum, and the lyrium blazes, burning his skin, pouring strength into the blow. His blade hacks through the veridium armor, splitting it and biting into the man’s side. The wound isn’t deep, yet the general yells in pain. Fenris grins with bloody lips. Heavy armor is no excuse for being caught off-guard by a wound. The world spins around him, but he must act now,  _must_  act. So he clears the blade, slides it back, and levers the point into the gap, driving it through.

The maneuver throws him off-balance, and he staggers forward, losing the sword. The general grasps the section of blade protruding from his side, then swings the flail with a vengeful roar.  _Venhedis._

Fenris tries to get out of the way, but his coordination is gone, and the flail-head lands in his arm.

 _Pain,_  pain, his arm destroyed, hanging dead and shredded from the shoulder. He crashes to his knees. That’s it. He’s done.

Then a forceful explosion of flame sends the general tumbling back. The cobbles jam the greatsword deeper into his gut. Fenris gasps in relief. It seems he is to live after all. The warm grasp of healing magic wraps up his arm, returning it to wholeness. It’s still weak, but the lyrium can compensate that. He yanks the sword out of the general’s corpse. He will need it.

“Fenris, I can’t—“

Another warning, more panicked this time. Fenris heaves himself to the side and rolls again. More spirit energy glides past him.  _I can’t protect you,_  Fenris guesses. Anders must be under threat.

Or—Fenris finds as he rises—it’s the mage-commander who’s been after him, and she is simply too powerful to be countered.

She, like the general, is bedecked in a uniform fit for her station, robes layered in blue, green, and gold. She stands in the shelter of two buildings, her arms weaving. A great grasping hand in glowing white rushes forward. Fenris dashes out of its path. Not good. If she can’t be countered, she  _will_  pin him. A desperate cry from the center of the plaza. “I need help!” That’s Aveline. If Hawke isn’t backing her up, he must be injured, or—

A shape rises from the shadows behind the mage-commander and stabs her in the back.

Her scream is lost in the boom of another strike at the iron gates. But the attack did not go unnoticed, and from further down the alley a violent spray of magic envelops her and Hawke. Fenris’s heart seizes in terror. More mages. Surely Hawke noticed them? Surely he got away? But there’s no time, there’s no time. Aveline needs help.

So Fenris goes to her.

The half-dozen she was facing have doubled in number. Her back is planted squarely against the tree, but they still have her on either side. He calls out as he runs, bellowing battle cries in Tevene.  _“Patimur! Patimur!”_   _We endure!_  The display grabs some attention, the soldiers at the back turning as he charges forward, the lyrium blazing with power. As soon as he reaches them he releases it.

The blast of force sends the closest soldiers flying back into their comrades. Fenris advances plants, his feet, feels the markings wrapped tight around his arms. He draws on them now to counterbalance his injury, to give him the strength he lost to that flail-head.

The slash has so much power behind it that there’s a snap in his bad elbow, and a pop in that shoulder. The bright bursts of pain blur away under the lyrium burn, and he focuses in on the battlefield,  _assess, assess—_

Two soldiers dead from that strike. Their guts splay on the cobbles. The rest cower, ringed around him but terrified to engage. He killed their general, after all.

Then the circle breaks as Aveline bashes her way through, joining Fenris. Her sword-arm trembles, her blade drifting awkwardly below a true guard. Fenris sees the split in her armor just off the shoulder. That must have been a powerful blow. But he can keep them away from that side. No more wide slashes. He must remember his more conservative martial forms. The point isn’t to cut them down. The point is to stay alive, just until Hawke and Anders can kill the mage-commander.

A dull  _boom._  Past the soldiers facing him the iron gates shudder.

At last one of them finds her courage and charges Aveline, and it begins. As long as Aveline’s shield-arm is intact, Fenris can both make up the deficit and defend himself. He finds Starkhaven has seemingly neglected to train their forces against great swords—either that or his Tevinter forms are too foreign. They do not know his counters. He kills the first who rushes him, and the second. The next ones are more careful, so Fenris is as well. Anders is no doubt too busy keeping Hawke alive against that group of mages to spare any healing.

The fight is methodical. Fenris covers Aveline’s right, and she, to some extent, covers him as well, when his attention stretches too far over the foes who threaten her and misses those coming up over his rear shoulder. The result is a slow rotation, the two of them back to back, an impenetrable unit. Still Fenris picks them off. Their numbers shrink, and they grow hesitant. Good. He can hold until Hawke calls the retreat—

A cry of  _“Help!”_  Anders.

Not good. if he goes down, so does Hawke. Fenris scans, peering in the direction of the cry. There, in a shadowed alley, the shuffle of motion, the flash of blades. Without Hawke there to cover him, Anders can’t break away and find another hiding place. “Fenris, go!” Aveline shouts.

He’s about to ask if she’ll be all right when he finds that several of the soldiers facing them have also heard Anders’s cry and detached in the hopes of overwhelming him. Aveline will have to handle the rest. Anders needs help. As for Hawke—hopefully he had the good sense to disappear.

Fenris sprints forward. That means the enemy mages will be looking for a new target, and who better than the man who’s been harassing them from afar? Anders needs to vanish, now. The group of soldiers reaches the mouth of the alley just as Fenris hits their back. He bellows another Tevene war cry as his markings lash out with a burst of force. It’s hasty and only makes them stumble, but they spin, afraid. Not enough. Anders is behind them, fending off two soldiers with his staff. He’s already bleeding. All he needs is a few seconds, Fenris knows, a few seconds of focus to cast a spell, and this engagement will be over.

For now Fenris is being attacked, and he must defend himself, parrying one strike, a second. But he knows what’s coming from across the square and draws on the lyrium, a shimmering glow welling over his skin.

The mages bombard him, flames cresting over him, ice clawing for purchase. It finds nothing. The lyrium scours the magic away—most of it, anyway, Fenris still searing his lungs on the superheated air, his skin burning with the cold. But it’s an acceptable sacrifice. He must be their target, rather than Anders, who, hidden deeper in the alley, is not as tempting—at least not as long as Fenris is there to draw fire.

Another thundering boom from the gate.

Through the bursts of flame Fenris fights. Not so conservatively now. He feels the stress tearing at his injured arm, uses it anyway to its fullest. It doesn’t matter if he destroys it, as long as it stays functional until they retreat. A jolt of electricity shoots through him, and he staggers. The lyrium isn’t so good as dissipating that.  _Venhedis._  Anders still struggles to defend himself. A narrow alley is a poor environment for a staff.

This goes on too long. Fenris roars another battle cry, enough to make them flinch, the four arrayed before him. Then he strikes. No more thought spared for defense. He needs to kill, and quickly. If he is struck, he will have to depend on his armor and the lyrium to deflect it.

When he advances they slip to his sides. As they should. He will not escape this unscathed. The one left before him raises his shield. Fenris hacks it down and hacks into the man’s neck. That’s one. A blast of flame, and he nearly falls with the force of it. A blade comes down. He blocks, shoves the woman away and kills her. Searing pain in his side. That one was probably supposed to go through his back, but his armor broke the momentum, and his lyrium shifted the trajectory, and it slid off his ribs instead. He whips around, catches the unfortunate soul by surprise. Three dead. The last obviously wasn’t expecting him to still be standing, and she puts up her shield—not fast enough to block the thrust that slips under the lower edge of her cuirass and pierces the chainmail beneath.

Another angry jolt of electricity. That hurt. He stumbles into the alley. The two soldiers on Anders turn to face him. A mistake. The electricity has stolen the strength from his muscles. He isn’t the threat. Anders is.

Twin screams of agony as they go up in flame. Fenris lurches through them and grasps Anders’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

No, he isn’t. He’s wounded in five or six places, injuries Fenris recognizes as the result of parries too weak or too hasty, incomplete deflections levered not far enough. “Fine,” Anders gasps. “Hawke.”

Fenris realizes he was not struck by any spirit energy outside the alley. Then the mage-commander must have been otherwise occupied.

Hawke.  _Venhedis._ The man is reckless to the point of suicidality.

A  _boom_  from the gates.

Anders gestures. Fenris feels heat at his back and whips around. A wave of fire crests down the alley only to vanish. They can’t stay here. “I will draw their attention,” Fenris tells Anders. “Find another place to hide, then  _help Hawke.”_

Anders nods. “On it. Go.”

Fenris turns and charges, becoming a ghost as he goes.

They are ready for him as he emerges. Or so they think. The fire roars through him harmlessly, the chill of the ice almost beneath his notice, even the electricity lashing through him as if through air. Fewer spells now, and there are wisps of black oily smoke in the air. Hawke has been at work here. Three mages stand in the square, and behind them the commander watches the faces of the buildings, searching for Hawke. She has to die. The gate shudders, bowing inward. This needs to end now. Fenris heads straight for her. Spirit energy glows around her fingers in ivory-white. It’s fine. He doesn’t need to kill her. He only needs to slow her down.

One of her lackeys warns her.  _“Commander!”_  Damn. He runs faster. She looks over her shoulder, spots him, and hurls a glittering blast of spirit energy. Fenris steels himself.

It socks into him head-on. The lyrium sparks and surges, but Fenris holds it because he  _must_  hold it, and still he pitches forward. She stumbles away, bewildered at this enemy no magic can touch. Fenris doesn’t have much of a plan here. If he materializes, as he must to do any damage—his blade is spectral as well, or he could not hold it with spectral hands—then the barrage of magic, with her in the mix, might overwhelm him.

Fire blooms around her. She cries out in surprise but counters it ably. Fenris steps into her—and she steps away, much more agile in her robes than that honor guard he mutilated earlier with the same tactic. He pursues. Divide her attention. More fire and ice, some aimed at him, some at her. She counters, circles away. Good. Can’t get a spell off. The lasting effects of that last strike still shiver through him, disrupting his body and threatening to make him corporeal again. But he must hold. He must hold. Until—

From the shadow of a building Hawke appears and stabs her in the back.

It wasn’t enough the first time—she must be a battlefield healer, like Anders—and it won’t be this time. But Hawke stays, stays exposed, trusting Anders to shield him—

And Fenris to finish her off. He sticks an arm through her chest and pulls back the lyrium.

Her chest opens up around him. She grunts in pain and slumps. A blast of fire sends Hawke tumbling back. Fenris’s gauntlet glows with heat; the rest of him is still insubstantial. Hawke rolls to his feet and shouts out, “RETREAT!”

At last. The gate bends inward, creaking. Fenris turns and sprints across the square. He finds Aveline is already by the tunnel entrance, a few yards past the tree. Her opponents are dead, and her sword is raised and steady. Anders must have healed her. Excellent. Fenris stands by her, waits for Hawke, who goes at a limping run. Injured against the mages. Half his face is reddened, blisters on his cheek. A nasty burn. He slides down the ladder, and Anders darts from cover, dashes across the square and follows. Aveline puts her shield up against a spray of ice shards. “Go!”

There’s an enormous crash as the gates burst open and Starkhaven soldiers flood through the gap.

Fenris releases the lyrium and descends. At the bottom of the ladder a dim light bobs in the darkness, illuminating Anders’s face, fearful, and Hawke’s, grimacing in pain. “They’ve broken through,” Fenris tells them.

Then Aveline is with them, and they sprint through the tunnel, the walls close around them. Fenris prays the blockage has been cleared away, at least in part. Hawke is in the lead despite his limp. He rounds the next corner, then pulls up short. “Shit,” he whispers.

The blockage looms before them, as solid as it was when Aveline’s forces built it there.

Anders doesn’t wait, just goes forward and starts making wide, looping gestures. Rocks and soil crumble from the wall. Aveline stays where she is, and Fenris joins her, while Hawke heads back should any enemies break through and head for Anders.

There’s a moment of stillness. Aveline glances over. “Are you ready to hold?”

Fenris nods. “For as long as it takes.”

The sound of approaching footsteps, and the first group dashes around the corner.

Fenris steps forward and swings. A reverse, starting from the left, his weaker side. It allows Aveline to come up next to him, leading with her shield. Her charge sends two of them to the ground. Fenris advances with a couple of wild slashes, forcing the soldiers back so Aveline has the space to finish the two she bowled over. The tunnel is fairly narrow; with Fenris’s range and Aveline’s shield, they might just be able to block it off.

The next group arrives, another five. Anders’s light isn’t bright enough. With this many, in this darkness, the flicker of movement belong not to discrete foes but instead one indistinct mass, one seething wall of steel and hatred. The enemy.

Hold. He must hold. He puts up a guard, and a blow clangs off his blade. Killing them doesn’t matter. It would be nice, yes, to lay corpses at their feet, to strike fear into them, to give them unstable ground. But their numbers will be overwhelming no matter how many fall, the narrowness of the tunnel the only limit to how fast they gain ground. They will not be pushed back. He must hold. It is not a role he has often played, but the greatsword isn’t a bad weapon for it. 

He blocks, counters—mistake, against this many, and he only just manages to catch the incoming strike on the strong of his blade rather than his forearm. Again the steel vibrates, and his fingers nearly spring open. His strength is waning. He has already been fighting, and these soldiers are fresh. How is he supposed to stand against them? Because he must. Because Hawke and Aveline and Anders depend on him, just as he depends on all of them.

A roar from Aveline as her shield bashes in a man’s face. Starkhaven should not have equipped their forces with open-faced helmets. More soldiers rush around the corner. Their numbers continue to swell, the sheer press of bodies pushing Fenris and Aveline back. No. They must hold. He snarls at his foes in Tevene, digs up curses he hasn’t uttered in years. His markings glow in the dim tunnel, but they’re nearly spent. He hopes he’ll be able to escape, as he bragged to Anders he would. If not…he will die. That’s all there is to it. His block breaks, and he must dance back to avoid being struck. The soldiers press forward, forcing Aveline to retreat to avoid leaving a gap in the line. Damn. That block shouldn’t have failed. His strength is going fast. His injured arm can barely maneuver the sword, and his right is growing fatigued from compensating.

From behind them Anders calls out, “It’s done!”

Finally. Not much longer now. Aveline intercepts a strike meant for him, chopping it to the ground. He is exhausted. Exhaustion makes him careless. But it won’t be much longer. “Aveline!” Hawke calls.

“Go!” Fenris shouts to her. “I will see you again on the other side!”

“Right!” Another shield bash, another dazed soldier she cuts down. “Maker give you strength, Fenris!”

They retreat as one. He centers himself in the tunnel and she slips behind him into the hole Anders made, leaving her sword and shield.

A hundred enemies, and Fenris is alone.

A much smaller space to defend now. Only the hole in the wall. Fenris is backed up against it, bracketed. He cannot hope to defend himself. He had thought the lyrium might help him, but he can’t afford to stretch what little power it has left. Block. His blade shivers. Block. Fails, the blow biting into his shoulder before he manages to shove the woman back. Pain, sharp pain, wound pain. He is struck again. A chop to the thigh that might have taken his leg off if the wall hadn’t gotten in the way. His throat burns, his breath harsh and gasping. He is  _tired._  How much longer must he do this? Parry. Slash. So weak he almost loses his sword when the blow is diverted. The steel is heavy in his hands now. He must fight against it. Parry. Parry. Block—too heavy. The hilt slips from his weak hand, so he raises his arm instead. The strike is straight-on and cuts open his armor, as well as the flesh beneath.

A sound below the clang of metal, the grunts of exertion. Someone shouting.

Shouting his name.

Voices through the hole in the wall. He almost cries with relief. A pommel strikes him in the mouth, and blood oozes through his smile as he drops his sword, invokes the lyrium, and steps backward into the rock.

The lyrium flares in protest at his body intersecting with the wall. He is not strong enough to stay like this, subsumed in something else. If he can’t return to normal soon, this form will disperse, saturating the earth around him. And—if past experience is anything to go by—it will hurt. Very much.

So he turns and stumbles forward.

Almost there. Almost there, he tells himself, though he has no idea whether or not that’s true. How long is the blockage? The lyrium nearly escapes him, but he claws it back in, desperate. What happens when he disperses inside a solid object? He doesn’t want to find out. Almost there. Or not. It doesn’t matter. The only way is forward. He walks in pitch darkness, the cool earth gliding through him. What if he never sees Hawke again? He should have said goodbye. He should have thought of that before.

Then suddenly he is in open air, and he becomes substantial again as he collapses.

Hawke catches him before he hits the ground. “Fenris, no, please—“

“Fine,” he mumbles. “I’m just. Tired.” The markings seem to have sucked out the last of his strength, consuming it to power his journey through the rubble. To his right Anders’s arms are weaving, and the stones shift as the hole in the wall caves in. “We need to go,” Anders says breathlessly, his face in the dim light shining with sweat. “They might have fetched a mage of their own.”

Fenris tries to stand and finds he can only do so with Hawke’s help. “I can’t.” He shakes his head. “Can’t walk.”

“Then I’ll carry you,” Hawke declares.

“I don’t think so. Half your bones are broken, I saw how you were limping.” Aveline goes to one knee. “On my back, Fenris. Be quick about it.”

Their pace down the tunnel isn’t quite as frantic as it was on the other side of the blockage, but urgency pushes them to a run. They’re still without reinforcements, and there’s no way of knowing how soon Starkhaven will break through. But at last a shaft of weak daylight appears before them. “There!” Anders calls. “The exit!”

Hawke goes ahead, his limp more obvious than ever, even in the murk of the tunnel. If he has’ been covering it up, it must be bad. The results of fighting a mage-commander on his own. At the bottom of the shaft he shouts up, “It’s Rowan Hawke! I’ve got injured with me, send down a rope!”

A faint echo. “Ser Hawke? You’re back?”

“Yes!” he replies. “And I’ve got the guard-captain too!”

“Aveline! Oh, thank the Maker!”

Fenris blinks sleepily. Is it over? Have they escaped? The guards at the top let a rope down. Hawke ties Fenris into it, and he’s hauled up, clinging weakly to the rough line. There are a dozen people at the top—extra protection, no doubt, once they found out Starkhaven was using the tunnels. A woman helps him out of the ropes and sits him down against an adjacent building. “Shit, that’s a lot of blood,” she murmurs.

“Not mine,” he says. “Most of it.”

“You say that, but these wounds are gushing.” She calls over her shoulder. “This one doesn’t look good!”

Anders is up now, and he comes over and kneels, panicked. “You said you were fine!”

“We had to leave,” Fenris responds. Only now is the pain making itself known. Oh yes. He is in pain.

“Fenris—do you know what the word ‘fine’ means? It means unhurt! Which you’re not!” He grasps Fenris’s thigh, the deep chop there, healing magic flickering to life under his palm.

Fenris glares. “I seem to remember you telling me that you were  _fine_  when I reached you in the alienage.”

“Yes, well, I can heal myself. You can’t.” He makes a sound of frustration. “Damn it all, I’ve got hardly anything left—“

“Fenris!” Hawke crashes to his knees beside them. “Maker, look at you—“

“I may have overtaxed myself,” he mumbles.

Hawke kisses his bloodied lips. “It’s all right, you’ll be all right. Anders?”

“I’m trying, but I’m exhausted. Shit. All I need to do for now is stop the bleeding—“

“Are you that mage who—“

One of the guards, staring down at Anders, who hasn’t got his hood up now, his face exposed for all the world to see.  _Venhedis._  Hawke struggles to his feet.

But Aveline steps in first. “Yes, he is, and he saved my life many times while he lived here, and did so again today. Not to mention his contributions to the battle yesterday evening. Have you got a problem, guardsman?”

The man hesitates. Then he snaps off a salute. “Thank you for saving our captain, sir!”

Anders nods. “And thank you for not running me through. Now I really need to focus.”

Fenris reaches out. “Hawke.”

Hawke kneels again and grasps his hand. “What? What is it?”

“I love you.”

Hawke squeezes his fingers and strokes his face. “You’re going to be fine, Fenris. You’re going to be all right.”

“Yes,” he mutters. “But I am very tired.”

He shuts his eyes. Hawke says something else to him, but he doesn’t hear it.

——

“High dragon at the Bone Pit.”

“True,” Anders replies.

“No! Come on.” Harding gives him a knowing smile. “Maybe it was just a really big regular dragon.”

“No, it was in fact a high dragon,” Fenris affirms. “I spent several very unpleasant seconds being whipped through the air in its jaws. Not an incident I would misremember.”

“Definitely a high dragon.” Hawke, sitting beside him on the sofa, lets out a wistful sigh. “What a beautiful creature.”

“Hawke, I nearly died.”

“Yes! And that was—bad. But you have to admit, she was an  _incredible_  sight.”

“Okay, okay, I believe you.” Harding pages through her copy of Varric’s book. It appears very well-loved. “Now let’s see…”

Much of Lowtown has been ceded to Starkhaven. Darktown is proving a more difficult target—the Carta have been devastating them there, cutting off communication, leading them into traps, piling the streets with corpses in blue and green. Still, the sheer advantage of numbers has carried Starkhaven forces to within a mile of the great stone stairs. Donnic and Aveline still command from the Hanged Man. Fenris is still recovering from that pitched battle in the alienage four nights ago, but he fought again yesterday. The assassination of the general bought them a half-day of inaction—a small victory, perhaps, but every peaceful hour is another heap of lives saved. It was worth it. The mages, too, have been disorganized and less effective since their commander fell.

Now he, Hawke, Anders, and Harding sit in Aveline’s living room having celebratory scones. A scout brought them the news this morning—a fleet of Inquisition ships sighted on the Waking Sea, headed for Kirkwall.

“Aveline couldn’t have been  _that_  bad at flirting.” Harding reads from the book. “ ‘A real nice night for an evening?’ Varric made that up.”

Hawke bursts out laughing. “Oh, Maker, I’d forgotten.  _Completely_  true. Donnic told us later.”

“But she seems so—confident!”

Anders is chuckling. “Yes, and horrendous at the art of wooing. Trust me, she needed the intervention.”

“Okay, fine.” Harding flips through the book again, lands on a page Fenris notes is dog-eared. She stops there and hesitates, her cheeks reddening. Then she takes a deep breath. “The first time everyone played strip Wicked Grace and Varric finally won the bet with Isabela because they found out Fenris’s underclothes were bright red.”

Fenris lunges forward in his seat.  _“Absolutely_  false! I am going to  _kill_  that dwarf—“

“Excuse me, that one is true!” Anders interjects. “Only they weren’t red, they were forest green.”

Harding covers her face behind her book. Hawke has a fit of giggling. Fenris meanwhile, lifts one eyebrow at Anders. “Oh, and you remember the exact color, do you, mage? From—how long ago was that? Ten years now?”

Anders flushes and folds his arms. “It was—memorable,” he mutters.

“I remember too. It was the first time I’d seen you unclothed. You had  _amazing_  legs.” Hawke leans in and slides an arm around Fenris’s waist, murmurs in his ear. “I couldn’t  _wait_  to see what they would look like wrapped around my head—“

Fenris shoves him away firmly. “Restrain yourself. There are children nearby.” Saravh is napping upstairs, true, but she could wake up any minute.

Hawke sinks back into the sofa cushions, sulking. “You’re so mean to me.”

Anders watches them with faint amusement. “I’m glad you two have managed to stay together all this time. I really am.”

“You should settle down here like we did!” Hawke’s affront is gone, and his eyes are bright. Fenris reaches over and grasps his hand. He knows how fond Hawke is of Anders, how guilty he felt seeing Vengeance take over.

Anders snorts. “And what, open up another clinic? I’d give it a week before someone found out who I was and burned it down.”

Harding jumps in. “You’re technically an agent of the Inquisition, right? We could protect you.”

That provokes a laugh. “Right. An  _Inquisition_  clinic in Darktown. How long would that last, d’you think?”

Fenris frowns. “Three days, perhaps?”

“Mm, I disagree,” Hawke says. “Two at the most.”

Harding rolls her eyes. “They don’t have to  _know_  we’re backing you. We can be subtle.”

Anders doesn’t respond for a moment. Then he says quietly, “I’ll think about it.”

He wants to come back. Hawke wants him back. Aveline doesn’t need the headache, but she’s warmed to him since he’s been here, and she might not mind. Fenris…misses him, though he’ll never admit it aloud, barring heavy duress.

“So.” Harding grins. “Hawke. Looks like you’re Kirkwall’s Champion again.”

He groans. “I didn’t even do anything, except for that one night! Aveline’s the one who’s been saving the damned city!”

“Yeah, and I’ll bet she’s glad you’re the one who’s getting all the attention for it.”

Hawke rubs his eyes. “All I wanted was to disappear. That’s why we built the house  _outside_  the city walls.”

“Prepare to be stopped in the streets. You too, Fenris.” She nods at him. “I heard about your stand that first night. Wish I coulda been there to see it.”

Fenris shifts. “I…am not comfortable with attention.”

“It’s all right.” Hawke kisses his cheek. “Just look at them like you’re considering whether or not to kill them for daring to approach you. It works every time.”

It seems they are know to the city once more, despite their efforts to stay anonymous. But it was worth it, of course. Kirkwall is contrarian and dysfunctional and absolutely lethal at night, but even in their six-year absence Fenris always thought of it as home.

A sharp knocking at the door. Hawke rises and answers it. “Yes?”

“Ser!” The soldier there salutes. “Starkhaven’s sent an envoy! They’re looking to negotiate! The captain wants you there!”

“Excellent. They’re surrendering.” Hawke grins. “Fenris, shall we?”

Fenris lifts an eyebrow. “Why do you need me?”

“Because you’re going to scare the living daylights out of them. It’ll be priceless, come on.”

He supposes it’s not unlikely that tales of his feats—the stand at the gate, the singlehanded defeat of the forward general—have gotten out by now. Being admired he doesn’t much like, but being feared isn’t so bad. “Very well.”

He takes Hawke’s hand and heads out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with bonus drabble! See it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5173718/chapters/11918525)!


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